Rock n Roll

Sunday 2nd December 2018 - Gibraltar.

We arrived here yesterday lunchtime and found our place to stay on a Football Club car park on the Spanish side about a half kilometre from the 'frontier'.  We pay 5 euros for the privilage of staying but there are no facilities.....it is next to a newly built road and promenade....built with EU money.....and next to a decent but deserted beach.  It's like they have built the infrastructure but forgotten to tell anyone to come and use it.  The land adjacent to the beach is not pretty and mainly involves sports grounds....not really the backdrop for a successful beach resort.  There is loads of empty parking spaces, just like we have witnessed elsewhere.  Please don't think that I am a Euro hater.....I voted to stay in the EU but in my humble opinion from what we have seen, the Spanish must have received an awful lot of EU money and thrown it at roads, and beach infrastructure projects with a vague hope that the tourism will expand into all of those areas.  Conversely, I see very little EU money being spent in the UK and from what I have seen of Gibraltar they aren't getting any of it....probably a bit of 'politics' being played!

On the way here there were no signs for Gibraltar until we got off the motorway and got within 10 km of Gibraltar.  It seems that Spain doesn't want to let anyone to know it is here.  They certainly don't seem to acknowledge its presence.

One thing I needed to get straight in my head was that Gibraltar is a peninsula and not an island and it is a British Crown Colony (ie ruled by a Governor appointed by the UK Government).  After our arrival we crossed the border on foot loosely waving our passports at customs officials of Spain and then Gibraltar.  Then we walked across the airport runway!

How weird is that!  Can you imagine doing that in the UK?  It would have made a lovely place to wild camp in the van...although it could be a little noisy at times.

There are lots of things that are very similar to the UK and maybe two things that are dissimilar.  One thing they do different is they drive on the right side of the road like Spain and the second thing is their is no VAT (hurray).  That means that booze and cigarettes, perfumes and petrol are cheaper but almost everything else is the same or more because there seems to be extra transport costs.  Everything else seems very British but not a naff copy of Britain.  It seems to be a slightly dated and more genteel Britain.  They even use sterling as the currency.....we still had some pounds stashed away so we didn't need to exchange any money.

Here is a few prices for you:-

Diesel 99p a litre

Bombay Sapphire Gin 1 litre - £10.50

Spanish Gin 1 litre (decent stuff) £6

Rum and Coke and a large whisky (in a pub) £5

We spent the afternoon checking out the town area and we saw a reconstruction of the Keys Ceremony that occurs every Saturday lunchtime....

They march through the Main Street to the Governors residence to hand over the keys.  

The Main Street include most UK shops, including M&S, Debenhams, Next, Top Shop, Matalan and many more.  I'm not particularly bothered about the shopping aspect but we did call into M&S and bought a couple of the cheesy scones that Janice (and me) like so much.

The Colony has a great history.  It became British 'in perpetuity' in 1713 at the Treaty of Utrecht.  I believe Admiral Rooke seized it prior to the treaty but that's when it became official.  It is of great strategic importance and we have used it as a naval base ever since.  The area has lots of fortifications all around the town and the Rock.  There is lots of history about naval battles and a great siege between 1779-1783 which we withstood.

We even broke a rule by going out after dark.  We revisited the town on a Saturday night to sample the nightlife.....but we never found it.  Despite all the cheap alcohol there weren't many people about...maybe it's the time of year?

The night view from our van was pretty good though.

 Today we decided to .....wait for it.......cycle to the top of the Rock (hence the Rocking and the Rolling).  What a stupid thing to do, at least that's what the people selling tickets thought and that's what we thought after the first kilometre.  It was rather steep and we did have to push in places but we did it.  We will do anything to avoid paying £13 each for the Cable Car although there is a £5 charge just to walk (or cycle) on the Rock Nature Park.  The views were fab!

The Barbary Macaques were good at keeping us entertained and didn't bother us except we left our bikes locked up at one point to climb some stairs and came back to find that my white cycling jacket had been taken from the panier and deposited on the track.....my policing instincts tell me that a monkey had been at work looking for food but was rather disappointed with my jacket.

A couple of extra moneys!

The way down was a little easier.  We had booked in for a carvery at a pub in the town.  

This was our reward for cycling up the Rock.  Good value for £8.95.  How did you find the meat, I hear you saying, I reply, "I moved the vegetables and there it was".  It was lovely, washed down by a pint of London Pride bitter.  Janice had the rosè wine.  You probably understand me now when I say it's a bit of Britain abroad.

To let our meal settle we had a walk on the harbour and Janice spotted another boat for her collection.

Then to finish our 'fairly' energetic day we cycled around the perimeter of Gibraltar.

This was Europa Point looking across to Africa and the Atlas Mountains.

There is so much more I could tell you about Gibraltar.  It has lots to offer, all in a very small space.