North View From Cable Car

Friday 17 September 2021

Crystal views from the "Upper Rock" as we rode cable car to top then tramped to O'Hara's Battery then back across to The Great Siege Tunnels, nearly everywhere in between and back down by the Moorish Castle. It's perhaps three and a half kilometers south to north and we probably did six. Supposed it might have been like Table Mountain in Cape Town with a plateau, but no. The thing is pointy all the way up. Roads and trails hug the sides and are steep up or down. However, the views are absolutely spectacular and many of the viewpoints are above vertical cliffs. Looking over is a groin tingling experience.

Other than amazing vistas and character enhancing exercise The Rock sports a few remarkable locations. St. Michael's Cave is densely packed with intricate features enhanced by a four hundred seat auditorium inside for a light and sound show. Half of us thought it was the most remarkable cave we've seen. Others were more taken with the one in Malaysia that was used as a monastery and went through to the other side. That was much larger and really cool too.

Beginning with The Great Siege (last of fourteen throughout its history) in late eighteenth century when Spain and France failed to retake Gibraltar after over three years of trying, Britain carved tunnels through the limestone and projected cannon out of the cliff-sides. We only visited an older section as far as George's Hall carved inside The Notch (a projection on the north face) with many embrasures, but eventually during WWII the system was extended to forty three km. Numerous batteries are also mounted around the top with some artillery that can reach Africa. Brits were pretty serious about holding onto the place and controlling access to the Med. By the way shrapnel was invented during the Siege to rain death and destruction on attacking forces by, that's right, Col. Shrapnel.

Barbary macaques are everywhere, but seemed not particularly aggressive. Not having the creatures in Canada or Florida, when first seeing them in Panama and Costa Rica then Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand, we took lots of photos. Not this time. The law of diminishing returns has set in and we're over monkeys.

With a population of thirty three thousand and many visitors Gibraltar town is quite busy and lousy with great cafes, restaurants and pubs. Told that the local fish and chips was excellent we were obliged to partake and were not disappointed. For that and many reasons look forward to stopping again when returning to the New World. Hope we can spend more time.

Jack & Jan