Where’s Colin? His tyres have not rolled an inch in the last 24 hours.We’ve paid our €3 to the man with the notebook for another night.
A banging woke me at 6.30 this morning, which was followed by the sound of various items of rubbish being blown through the car park. It was the last hurrah of the windy spell. By getting-up-time we had a fine day with only moderate breeziness.
Gibraltar was our plan again for today; more specifically: the Rock. I wouldn’t have opted for the cable car, even if it had been running; we were going on foot. I’d expected to see plenty of other people walking too, but whilst lots of tour mini-buses and taxis passed us, we only saw one other person on foot as we made our way up.
The going was relentlessly upwards, but being entirely on road until the last twenty metres, it was easy going, and the views were superb on this blue-skied day, with both Spain and Morrocco clearly visible. The photo below wasn’t taken quite at the highest point we reached (which was just behind me in this snap) because there was a family of monkeys just there, including a very wee baby, so we left them in peace and took the photo a short distance away:
Another high point was visited a while later where we achieved a passable selfie of the two of us. Alas, the one with the Atlas Mountains in shot wasn’t a good one; this one has Algeciras behind us:
And then I got photobombed by a monkey!
It wasn’t me it was interested in, though. As we made our way off the gun emplacement that innocent looking thing took a leap onto Mick’s backpack, quickly slipping its hands into the pockets in search of snacks. Fortunately, Mick had eaten his banana (which had been in the side pocket) just before we got into monkey territory (feeding the Macaques being a criminal offence).
A different route was taken back down and it turns out that if we’d gone up that way then we wouldn’t have had to pay the entrance fee into the nature reserve (a whole 50p each!). Quite why they charge pedestrians who walk up the road, but not ones who walk up the path, I know not.
A detour was taken from our walk back through town to visit the large Morrisons supermarket, which was quite a bizarre experience, making us feel even more like we’d been teletransported back to the UK. There was a MacDonalds next door which provided us with cups of tea and internet – my mobile internet hasn’t been working most of the day, even though I’ve got the Movistar network selected (I’m becoming suspicious that Movistar operates in Gibraltar too, and that I’m connected to that mast, which would explain the non-functioning, as Gibraltar isn’t included in Three’s ‘Feel at Home’.
Back at Colin another decision point has been reached. The basic plan for this trip was ‘head to Alicante, then down to Gibraltar, then look how long that’s taken us and make an onwards plan from there’. We’ll examine the map once I’ve finished typing this.
I’ll finish with a photo of where we’re currently parked. From that angle it looks quite an unattractive place to spend a couple of nights – the reality isn’t so bad, with the beach and sea being just a road-width away (in any case, I always maintain that when a place is fundamentally just for sleeping then it doesn’t much matter what it looks like; everywhere looks the same once it’s dark out anyway).
(Incidentally, over 10 miles were walked today - not bad for a place as small as Gib!)
A banging woke me at 6.30 this morning, which was followed by the sound of various items of rubbish being blown through the car park. It was the last hurrah of the windy spell. By getting-up-time we had a fine day with only moderate breeziness.
Gibraltar was our plan again for today; more specifically: the Rock. I wouldn’t have opted for the cable car, even if it had been running; we were going on foot. I’d expected to see plenty of other people walking too, but whilst lots of tour mini-buses and taxis passed us, we only saw one other person on foot as we made our way up.
The going was relentlessly upwards, but being entirely on road until the last twenty metres, it was easy going, and the views were superb on this blue-skied day, with both Spain and Morrocco clearly visible. The photo below wasn’t taken quite at the highest point we reached (which was just behind me in this snap) because there was a family of monkeys just there, including a very wee baby, so we left them in peace and took the photo a short distance away:
Another high point was visited a while later where we achieved a passable selfie of the two of us. Alas, the one with the Atlas Mountains in shot wasn’t a good one; this one has Algeciras behind us:
And then I got photobombed by a monkey!
It wasn’t me it was interested in, though. As we made our way off the gun emplacement that innocent looking thing took a leap onto Mick’s backpack, quickly slipping its hands into the pockets in search of snacks. Fortunately, Mick had eaten his banana (which had been in the side pocket) just before we got into monkey territory (feeding the Macaques being a criminal offence).
A different route was taken back down and it turns out that if we’d gone up that way then we wouldn’t have had to pay the entrance fee into the nature reserve (a whole 50p each!). Quite why they charge pedestrians who walk up the road, but not ones who walk up the path, I know not.
A detour was taken from our walk back through town to visit the large Morrisons supermarket, which was quite a bizarre experience, making us feel even more like we’d been teletransported back to the UK. There was a MacDonalds next door which provided us with cups of tea and internet – my mobile internet hasn’t been working most of the day, even though I’ve got the Movistar network selected (I’m becoming suspicious that Movistar operates in Gibraltar too, and that I’m connected to that mast, which would explain the non-functioning, as Gibraltar isn’t included in Three’s ‘Feel at Home’.
Back at Colin another decision point has been reached. The basic plan for this trip was ‘head to Alicante, then down to Gibraltar, then look how long that’s taken us and make an onwards plan from there’. We’ll examine the map once I’ve finished typing this.
I’ll finish with a photo of where we’re currently parked. From that angle it looks quite an unattractive place to spend a couple of nights – the reality isn’t so bad, with the beach and sea being just a road-width away (in any case, I always maintain that when a place is fundamentally just for sleeping then it doesn’t much matter what it looks like; everywhere looks the same once it’s dark out anyway).
(Incidentally, over 10 miles were walked today - not bad for a place as small as Gib!)
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