Little Britain

We're back from our 2 night sojourn to Gibraltar, it really is a small piece of England, more British than the Queen.

We parked our hire car on the Spanish side and walked across the border, with no customs or passport control to speak of. We then had to walk across the airport runway to get into town, they simply close it off when a plane is landing or taking off!!!

Crossing the runway - duck for low flying planes.

First afternoon we simply wandered about the town to get our bearings. Not difficult in a place this size – population 29,000 approximately. It was strange hearing so many English accents, with a weird dialect of Spanish thrown in.

I was still craving chilli so we went to a restaurant promising green thai curry prawns. The waiter was an American who understood my need for chilli and had to beat up the chef to put chillies in the curry for us. The result was delicious.

The Rock of Gibraltar

Next morning we hiked up ‘the Rock’ - not for us a sissy chairlift, or God forbid, a mini bus. We unfortunately coincided with a cruise ship in town along with 4000 of the gold sandal brigade.  We left them behind by hiking up a steep path to the second peak, abandoning the idea of sharing the main peak with them.

View from the Rock

The views are breathtaking and of course you can see across to the jagged coastline of North Africa. Morocco beckons, we will get there eventually, just a bit behind schedule. Aah! - the luxury of time.

Views to Morocco

We also spent a bit time wandering in the tunnels that were built during the siege of 1793 – bloody amazing…

Lunch in the sun beckoned, however we walked all the way down to town. Lawrence refused to take the bus even the last kilometre – and the bus is free. First time I’ve seen a Scotsman refuse something for nothing.

C'est dur la vie

Still craving chilli we sought out an Indian restaurant for dinner – I knew there had to be one somewhere, being English. We had a fabulous and very spicy Lamb Madras, really hit the spot. Will keep me going till Morocco.

We are now back in our camp in El Puerto and finally the weather has beaten us back indoors. The sun is still shining, but we are getting blasted by a cruel wind from the north-east. You may have seen that Europe is having a big freeze, which is not affecting us that much, apart from this icy wind. Should be back to idyllic conditions again on Monday, so they say…

Anyway, you demanding blog readers, you have been very slack of late with the blog comments. All give and no take. Has the blog become that boring??? I'm sorry there hasn't been disasters to write funny stories about. A word of encouragement now and then is appreciated – end of rant.

Lawrence is now doing DIY. He has finally come to terms with the fact that I'm a confirmed water snob and is installing a water purification system – yippee!!! I think I’ve finished my refurbishing for now, will post photos shortly.