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July 10th 2010
Published: July 10th 2010
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A great day and another highlight of the tour. Well done France.





Gibraltar, 10th July, 2010.

Gibraltar has been a part of my growing up since I was a lad at school, a part of the essential history of my country of birth. I learned about it in my history classes and later when in the RAF it was one of my preferred options as an overseas posting. RAF Gibraltar was one of the most sought after postings in the RAF and quite a few of my friends were lucky enough to be stationed there and they had wonderful memories of that time. So landing on this particular place was almost like a coming home even though I had never been there before.

A group of 6 of us hired an eight seater taxi for a tour of the Rock and we set off on a lovely summers day, not too warm with a lovely sea breeze. We started off driving around the city itself and learning how 30,000 inhabitants manage to live and survive on an ‘Island’ roughly 3 square miles in area. Perched beneath ‘The Rock’, a mountain with a sheer vertical face and measuring 1,396 feet in height, the tiny town has many high rise buildings in the form of flats and has a tiny shopping centre called ‘Main Street’.

It has buildings and fortifications dating back to the 8th Century of Moorish, Spanish and British origin. All of whom at one point in history invaded this tiny piece of Europe. We commenced to climb the Rock and our first port of call was the Lighthouse where you can see Africa (Morocco) only 8 miles away, and Spain an even shorter distance away. We then climbed up to see the famous Barbary Apes, a colony of African monkeys resident on the Rock and who have been there for the past 300 years. There is a legend that should these Apes die out or leave the Rock then Britains rule of Gibraltar will finish. These Apes are wild animals and wander at large, climbing on both vehicles and people, will snatch handbags, food, camera’s at will and can inflict a nasty bite. Some folk allow them to climb on their shoulders then usually spend the rest of their tour with Ape shit or urine on their clothes. Lovely to photograph but that’s about it.

From there we went to St Michaels cave which is one of the most amazing stalactite caverns I have ever seen. Cathedral like caverns with the most amazing stalactite formations. Deep inside is an auditorium where hundreds of people sit to listen to musical shows and we are told that the acoustics are incredible.

Then off we go to the Great siege tunnel, a series of tunnels dug out of the Rock by Soldiers 200 years ago who then dragged canons weighing many tons up the rock and placed them inside the tunnels as a defensive barrier. Quite an amazing piece of engineering.

We were then dropped off in Main Street to do a bit of shopping. A fascinatingly quaint shopping centre which was refreshingly quiet and people free to begin with. After a refreshing drink we then wandered around this tiny street with it’s quaint little shops and tiny side streets until it was time to embark.

A really lovely and enjoyable time in a very clean and friendly (and very proudly British) destination. I would love to spend a couple of weeks here in future. A great day.

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11th July 2010

G'day Barry !
G'day Barry, Les here from TBL, gotcha ! been following your blogs and a few others since you got on board, what an adventure. Glad you enjoyed Gib, we we there last year on Crown Princess. Hope you enjoy the rest of your trip, I know you are getting off in Southampton. Hope Dickwho and yourself are behaving. Cheers, Les

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