Diary 21. Gibraltar - A Home From Home
We'd only known that we wanted to visit Gibraltar for a week or so, and were really intrigued to see what the little country (about 2 square miles) had to offer us. We did a little research first, as we weren't sure if it was so English that we would be driving on the left hand side of the road again or not! We only knew that they used the British Pound. It also looked like we might have a problem parking the van there, as there were only 3 stops signposted on Park4Night.
We prepared ourselves for the fact that it might just be a day trip into the centre and back into Spain for the night if the spots weren't suitable, and off we set, ready to cross the border.
We prepared ourselves for the fact that it might just be a day trip into the centre and back into Spain for the night if the spots weren't suitable, and off we set, ready to cross the border.
We got all three of our passports out, and started on the relatively short drive. It was the first time on our entire trip that someone actually wanted to look at Bailey's passport, and, like at the French border for the Eurotunnel, Bailey actually liked the guard who spoke to us.
Once we’d crossed the border, the road and bollards funnelled us onto a road which didn’t have any traditional road markings, but did have a level crossing style barrier on it. It turns out that when you arrive to Gibraltar by car, you actually drive across the airport runway to get into the town. Yep, Gibraltar is that small that the only access in and out via road is by crossing international air space! There were people walking and cycling along it, cars and lorries driving and a plane, 30 metres away. Very surreal.
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| Driving Across Gibraltar Runway |
It was Sunday when we arrived, and we decided that we would have a look around the town centre to see what they had to offer. We hoped that Gibraltar ran by UK Sunday trading laws, and that we’d be able to have a mooch around. I was also excited to see if there was a Marks and Spencer's there, as I had been craving birthday cake for weeks, as it apparently doesn’t exist in the way that we know it in Spain, where I celebrated my birthday.
We managed to find a car park to plop the van, and a nice surprise was that on a Sunday, the parking was free. It took a good 10 minutes for us to get a space, so it was looking good for our little wander around, but we had to squeeze into a small space between a car and a thick bush.
We decided to walk in the general direction we saw others walking from, but it would seem that Gibraltar runs by the Spanish way of trading, and virtually every shop was shut. We thought it best to have a wander anyway to get our bearings, and we could earmark a few shops to pop into the next day if we fancied. Having said that, there isn’t a huge variety of shops in Gibraltar. All the famous UK brands were there, Debenhams, Holland & Barrett, Marks & Spencer's and even Dorothy Perkins, with a scattering of duty free alcohol and tobacco shops. The only trouble is, those are pretty much the only shops in Gibraltar. Walking down the high street was like watching the revolving background scenes in The Flintstones, where the exact same houses and people go by every 10 seconds. We counted 4 Holland & Barrett stores alone! Still, we had seen some good deals in the duty free shop windows, and picked out one to visit on Monday.
We managed to find a car park to plop the van, and a nice surprise was that on a Sunday, the parking was free. It took a good 10 minutes for us to get a space, so it was looking good for our little wander around, but we had to squeeze into a small space between a car and a thick bush.
We decided to walk in the general direction we saw others walking from, but it would seem that Gibraltar runs by the Spanish way of trading, and virtually every shop was shut. We thought it best to have a wander anyway to get our bearings, and we could earmark a few shops to pop into the next day if we fancied. Having said that, there isn’t a huge variety of shops in Gibraltar. All the famous UK brands were there, Debenhams, Holland & Barrett, Marks & Spencer's and even Dorothy Perkins, with a scattering of duty free alcohol and tobacco shops. The only trouble is, those are pretty much the only shops in Gibraltar. Walking down the high street was like watching the revolving background scenes in The Flintstones, where the exact same houses and people go by every 10 seconds. We counted 4 Holland & Barrett stores alone! Still, we had seen some good deals in the duty free shop windows, and picked out one to visit on Monday.
Gibraltar also has an Irish quarter off of the high street, which is akin to ChinaTown in the west end of London if you’re familiar with it, just with nothing but pubs! We did spot a place offering an £8 carvery for lunch, we drooled considerably, and vowed to return to that spot. Of course that’s easier said than done when you’re wandering aimlessly around a new place, and it’s safe to say we got lost halfway through the day and couldn’t find our way back! Getting lost however ended up in us having a really lovely experience.
We’d managed to make our way to a place called Ocean Village, purely by luck. It’s a complex of high rise luxury apartment buildings, with pubs and restaurants on all of the ground floor levels. There’s a huge cruise ship moored up in the harbour in Ocean Village, which has been turned into a hotel and casino. We enjoy playing the slot machines so we knew we were going to try our luck when it opened, that’s for sure.
We’d been walking around for a couple of hours, and were hot and grouchy, so decided to take advantage of an offer at a pub called The Ship, which was opposite the ship (creative, right?). The offer was 2 Pornstar Martini’s for £10, which we only got charged £8 for, and it made them all the more delicious!!
While we were sat out the front of the pub sipping our cocktails, we noticed that moored up in the marina were a couple of dolphin tour boat companies, and we made a mental note to look for the offices later to find out more. We watched the casino open its doors, finished our drinks and made our way inside.
We’d managed to make our way to a place called Ocean Village, purely by luck. It’s a complex of high rise luxury apartment buildings, with pubs and restaurants on all of the ground floor levels. There’s a huge cruise ship moored up in the harbour in Ocean Village, which has been turned into a hotel and casino. We enjoy playing the slot machines so we knew we were going to try our luck when it opened, that’s for sure.
We’d been walking around for a couple of hours, and were hot and grouchy, so decided to take advantage of an offer at a pub called The Ship, which was opposite the ship (creative, right?). The offer was 2 Pornstar Martini’s for £10, which we only got charged £8 for, and it made them all the more delicious!!
While we were sat out the front of the pub sipping our cocktails, we noticed that moored up in the marina were a couple of dolphin tour boat companies, and we made a mental note to look for the offices later to find out more. We watched the casino open its doors, finished our drinks and made our way inside.
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| Casino Ship |
We'd been to one other casino on the trip, in Badajoz for my birthday. We always go in with a budget, an amount that we accept we are willing to lose, and make it last by playing on the cheapest slot machines. Luck was on our side in Badajoz as we played for a couple of hours with €20 each, had dinner and a few drinks and still came out with the €40 we went in with. We weren't quite so lucky in Gibraltar, quickly losing €40 between us, but we did enjoy a couple of complimentary soft drinks.
When we came out we discovered a dolphin tour office just behind the pub we had our drinks at, so we went in to see how much the tour was. Swimming with dolphins has never really appealed to me, as I don’t agree with them being cornered into small pools just to have people grabbing their backs and forcing them to give them a ride. *Shudder.* But, the proprietor of the Blue Dolphin Tour Company let us know that there was a 99% chance we would see dolphins on our trip, and that it’s simply to observe them in their natural habitat, no fish bait, no forced swimming.
There were 3 tour times available the next day, morning, lunchtime and afternoon. He even said we were able to bring Bailey along, which really helped us in making the decision to go on the trip, as we weren’t sure if it would be too hot to leave her in the van while we were gone. It was £25 per person, Bailey was free, and we chose the morning tour, as it’s cooler. He let us know that there was no-one else on that tour yet, but he put our names down for morning and lunchtime tours, so we knew we were guaranteed a place should one not go ahead. The tickets we were given entitled us to 10% off food and drink in almost any of the pubs and restaurants in Ocean Village! Result, the tickets were already paying for themselves, and we were starving!
We chose a Wetherspoon's-looking pub to eat at, and ordered some good old British grub, Matt had a steak pie, and I had a full english breakfast….for dinner. Can’t get a whole lot more British than that now can you?! Well, Gibraltar certainly tries to, as there were more red telephone boxes there than I think I’ve ever seen in my life back home! That and having ‘HM The Queen’ written on the side of practically everything made it a comforting if not surreal experience in Gibraltar. After grub, we headed off to see if the parking spot at Europa Point, the most Southerly point of Gibraltar from which you can see Africa, was any good to us for the night.
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| Europa Point, Gibraltar |
The streets of Gibraltar are extremely narrow, and we had a hard time squeezing through them all whilst also going up and down hill. You could definitely tell that it was a fortress town and a defence stronghold.
The parking was perfectly reasonable, nothing scenic but didn’t feel dodgy at all. We got out and took Bailey on a walk around the touristy bit, to find out more information about the different memorials scattered about dedicated to those who had lost their lives in battle there. There were also some huge rotating gunners points which had been renovated and memorialised, and a map showing you how high the mountains of Africa are, just 8 miles across the ocean.
The parking was perfectly reasonable, nothing scenic but didn’t feel dodgy at all. We got out and took Bailey on a walk around the touristy bit, to find out more information about the different memorials scattered about dedicated to those who had lost their lives in battle there. There were also some huge rotating gunners points which had been renovated and memorialised, and a map showing you how high the mountains of Africa are, just 8 miles across the ocean.
Unfortunately, it was too misty for us to see the mountains. Then after a while of wandering around more, I pointed over the sea to a shadow of a mountain and said
“Oh look Matt, there’s Africa!”
He looked at me, and burst out laughing.
“No it’s not”, he said, “that’s Spain!”
I looked again at the map, and pointed out that the map showed that it was Africa. Queue more laughing.
Now, we never settled this particular debate, so I challenge you to tell me what I saw wasn’t Africa. If you look at a map, and look at the most southern tip of Gibraltar, there is no other European land around it, and if you were to place yourself at the southernmost tip and look out towards Africa, I’m still adamant that all you would see is ocean and Africa. Matt still thinks differently. He believes that we weren't facing south and that I was looking west. Your opinions on a postcard please!
Another 5 minutes of wandering around, and I saw a strange yellow line coming from far at sea, just lower than the clouds, heading straight for Gibraltar Rock. At first I just put it down to a trick of the light, as the sun would be setting soon. But then we looked up and saw that a huge volume of chalk dust was being blown off of the top of Gibraltar Rock. I put two and two together in my head and said,
“Matt, I think that’s a dust cloud you know.”
Yep, you’ve guessed it, he broke down laughing again.
“No, seriously, I think it’s a sand cloud blowing over from Africa!”
He shook his head, still laughing, and told me to stop being silly.
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| Chalk Blowing off the Rock |
Just as I was adamant that the land mass we saw was Africa, Matt was adamant that I had gone mad with the heat. Anyway, to cut a long story short, later that night he secretly googled it, and, guess what? Yep, it was a sand cloud blown over from Africa, and it had made the news.
Jenna 1, Matthew 0.
The next day we discovered that the morning Dolphin Tour wasn’t going ahead, which was good news for us as we would’ve been late anyway when you hear our next predicament!
About an hour before we were due to be on the boat, we went with Bailey and sat at the bus stop at Europa Point, ready to pay for a £2.60 return ticket each. Well, it turns out that dogs aren’t allowed on buses in Gibraltar.
Oh sweet Lord, by the time we got back to the van we had about 30 minutes left to get down to some kind of parking near Ocean Village and sprint our way to the boat. Somehow we managed it, as the parking space fairies were there to help us with a large space, enabling us just moments to spare! The parking actually ended up costing us less than the bus would have, so that was a nice touch too!
It was an amazing experience, we saw 2 different species of dolphins, the striped and the common, one of which had a calf in tow! We didn’t need to be nervous about Bailey on the boat at all either. She was a little hesitant at first, as we were sat at the bow which was a little closer to the water than she would’ve liked, but the second we spotted the first dolphin, she was chief dolphin spotter. Because of the way the sunlight was reflecting off of the sea, we were finding it difficult to spot a fin, but Bailey was on it every time. When the mum and baby came swimming up really close to the bow, Bailey nearly jumped in to go and say hello to them!
I’d really recommend it, seeing them in the wild was just superb, and apparently there are 6 species of dolphin that frequent the bay of Gibraltar, so you might even be luckier and see more than we did!
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| Bailey Spotting a Dolphin |
When we got off the boat, we used our 10% off voucher for a final drink, and headed off to the duty free shops at lightning speed, as we only had 30 minutes left on our 4 hour parking ticket. Unfortunately we were only allowed to bring 1 litre of spirits across the border each, which is a shame as we saw a 3 litre novelty bottle of Smirnoff for £25 that we wanted to get for Julie, Matt’s mum. We did think about buying our allowance and crossing the border in the van, and walking back into town and taking another allowance with us. We know it’s probably not kosher, but we also weren’t going to be bootlegging it or selling it on.
When we crossed the border back into Spain however, it became apparent that the wealthy people of Gibraltar were living a fence away from a slightly more deprived looking area. We decided it best not to leave the van there, as there was no secure parking available, and went on our merry way with 1 litre of alcohol each.
When we crossed the border back into Spain however, it became apparent that the wealthy people of Gibraltar were living a fence away from a slightly more deprived looking area. We decided it best not to leave the van there, as there was no secure parking available, and went on our merry way with 1 litre of alcohol each.
I think Gibraltar is the kind of place I’d like to have a holiday home, much like people have them in desirable south of France regions, like Cannes. But it’d be a miracle to afford one. Some locals we spoke to, and the estate agent window we looked in, confirmed that you had to be a millionaire, or on your way to becoming one to have a flat there. Most people that work there live just across the border in Spain, where it's much more affordable to live. If you’re a Gibraltar native, or married to one, you get reduced prices, but for everyone else the dream of English shops and English people in the sunshine all year round is a costly one. Perhaps we’ll stick with the rainy summers to avoid bankruptcy.
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