OK so not only is that a bad joke but it also dates me horribly. Nevertheless I’m sticking with it as I might never get another chance. Gibraltar is after all a rock, a massive limestone extrusion sticking out from Spain into the Mediterranean. Clustered around the edge of the rock is a very thin bit of flattish coastline which is the location of the port and the bulk of the buildings. The rock looms over all, there is virtually nowhere where you can’t see it if you look up. In fact the only place you can’t see it when you look up is if you’re standing on top of it, then you see it if you’re looking down.
The British captured the Rock from the Spanish during the War of the Spanish Succession. This was in the early 1700s when rulership of Spain was something worth going to war over. In the subsequent Treaty of Utrecht Spain ceded sovereignty over the Rock to Britain in perpetuity (none of this 99 year lease crap) which didn’t stop them trying to recapture it later in the century after the British had spent a lot of blood and treasure trying to hold on to its American colonies. The Great Siege lasted for several years but finally the Spanish gave up and Gibraltar remains British to this day despite a lot of snide comments from Spain.
Nowadays the Rock is famous for being a place where you can get your pocket picked by a monkey. Eager for a brush with animal larceny I set off early the next day. A cable car offers a viable alternative to climbing the Rock (other viable alternatives are suicide and developing a serious drug habit).
Having spent a lot of the last few weeks wandering through small crowded towns Gibraltar was quite familiar to me albeit with a British touch. The walk from my hotel at the edge of the territory to the centre of town took about five minutes and the cable car was only another five minutes or so further. Pubs and places selling “traditional” British fish and chips abounded. Basically the Gibraltans went from servicing the crews of Royal Navy vessels to British tourists without having to do much in the way of transition.
As with all such places I find it difficult to believe that people actually live here but later in the day I would walk past genuine dwellings for, no doubt, genuine people. For right now I bought a return ticket for the cable car and tossed in access to the Rock Nature Reserve (ie those bits too vertiginous to build on) but before I could hop on the cable car I got distracted by Gibraltar’s modest botanical gardens, the Alameda Gardens which were right next door.
I spent a happy hour wandering through the garden and dropped in on the mini zoo tucked into one corner. Given the size of Gibraltar, the gardens and the zoo itself small animals are pretty much the norm here. There are few places on Gibraltar where you could put an elephant where bits of it wouldn’t dangle over the side. The conservation park (as it calls itself) sources its animals from illegal pet seizures at customs and various breeding programs it’s involved in with other zoos.
I saw little monkeys (breeding program) a decent sized python (abandoned pet) a bunch of exotic birds (including a cockatoo) and an otter (provenance unknown). A sign promised that the turtle habitat was coming soon. I looked at the time and decided I probably couldn’t afford to wait. Surfeited on semi exotic animals I presented myself to the cable car and demanded to be taken to the top of the Rock.
Locked in a small metal cage with a number of like minded other human beings I took the journey to the top, some four hundred odd metres above the ground I had previously been standing on. I stepped out and was immediately offered the choice of viewing platforms or a walk through the reserve. I took option A and gazed out over the city, the Mediterranean and Spain depending on what direction I was pointed. I had hoped to be able to take a photo or two of the macaques actually I found the major difficulty was getting the camera hogging bastards to get out of the way long enough to take a photo of anything else.
Once my taste for scenic shots had been sated I set off through the nature reserve. At the top of the Rock there isn’t a lot of space and views from all directions were breathtaking. It was also possible to see exactly how small the flat, inhabited part of Gibraltar is. I could see land reclamation activities going on in the harbour so a little more space will soon be available but even so once you subtract the Rock and the port there isn’t a lot left.
Despite being a nature reserve there is little natural about the vegetation on the Rock. All the trees were cut down long ago to provide fields of fire for the garrison and the current scrubby bush is due to a security fence built in the 1800s that prevented shepherds from herding their flocks up there to graze. Still whatever the reason the top of the Rock is pleasantly green and is apparently a haven for butterflies according to signs dotted about the place.
The signs were somewhat less forthcoming when it came to giving directions. Nevertheless I toiled along until I came to O’Hara’s Battery. Or rather I came to a locked gate with a sign sorrowfully announcing that O’Hara’s Battery was currently closed. Somewhat miffed I climbed a little higher and came to another locked gate with a sign announcing that the Ministry of Defence would be very happy if I went no further. Guard dogs were mentioned. I retraced my steps and headed for the northern end of the Rock where the Great Siege Tunnels were located.
The day was hot and I was panting somewhat. Foolishly I had packed nothing except a camera and a stuffed camel. The truth is that I didn’t realise exactly how much space the Rock occupied or how much distance there could be between points of interest. The constant up and down I should at least have guessed at.
On my way to the siege tunnels I found a small tunnel all on its own. More out of a desire for shade than anything else I followed it and emerged on the other side of the rock with a small ledge giving amazing views of the eastern shore of Gibraltar a disturbing distance below us. I say “us” because the ledge was already occupied by a young American couple who promptly recruited me to take a photo of them. Since they were there I got them to return the favour before returning through the tunnel to the western side of the Rock.
Despite the up and down the prevailing trend was down. The siege tunnels were on the north face of the Rock facing the Spanish border, unsurprisingly since it was the Spanish (with some French help) who were conducting the siege. The tunnels were dug to boost the defences of the Rock with cannon positions dotted in carved out rooms along the way.
Having finally reached the runnels I wandered through them and gazed out of the holes carved for the cannon. Once glance was enough to convince me of the military importance of the tunnels. The gun positions were located so that cannon fire could be brought down onto the airport runway. No duty free shop would have been safe. No wonder the Spanish eventually gave up.
After the tunnels I was so far down the Rock that climbing all the way back up simply to take the cable car down again seemed less appealing than just continuing my downward journey. Besides according to the less than satisfactory map I had been provided there should be a Moorish castle a little further along.
Some more hot and sweaty trudging later I encountered the “castle” still bearing the marks of Spanish artillery from the aforementioned great siege. As castles go it wasn’t terribly large. I guess when it comes to castle building less is Moor.
The town was just below and after climbing down more steps than I care to imagine I found myself on the main street imaginatively named Main Street. There were only two more things I wanted to do in Gibraltar, buy a local football shirt and a soft bag for helicopter related reasons which will become clearer in a future post. I got the bag and the man I bought it from pointed me in the right direction to buy the shirt. Flushed with success I promised to reward myself by spending the next day reclining in the sun sipping cocktails by the pool at my ship/hotel.
The next day it was grey and chilly with a spattering of rain. Of course it was.
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