Wed 28th Jan: Gibraltar

Today a visit to one of the last outposts of Empire: Gibraltar. Nice quirky touch: having passed customs, you walk, or drive, across the airport runway to enter the colony. It’s nearly, but not quite, a patch of England, despite sterling currency, M&S and the Norwich and Peterborough Building Society etc.


Where Gib does score is its’ sense of history. Look at the tombstone of the sailor who died from wounds received at Trafalgar. The other photo is of the 100-ton gun commissioned in 1883 to guard the harbour. There were two originally, sited together, but the other’s barrel split due to practicing at too high a firing rate. The gun was soon outmoded and never fired a shot in anger. Coincidentally, the gun is located at the point where Nelson’s body was brought ashore temporarily after Trafalgar (preserved in a cask of brandy) while the Victory was being patched up.


Finally, to impress you with the efficiency of the dockyards, see if you can make out what the painter on the mobile platform is using to paint the lower hull of the ship. Yes- and we verified this with binoculars- it really is a four inch BRUSH!

Friday 23rd Jan to 27th

Sunday a real life expedition arrived at the site: two landrovers, a small lorry-like support vehicle and a dune buggy, all sporting sponsorship logos. A BRITISH expedition, of course, with lots of good chaps running around with clip boards and bellowing down mobile phones e.g., “ look, Nigel, I need the bloody thing here NOW!”




The dune buggy is driven through the campsite at a furious rate and has a large fan device on the back. Fuzzy picture confirms the perilous speed! It turns out they fit a para-wing to it and then it’s a microlite, which they plan to fly across the Straits of Gibraltar and onwards to Timbuktu at the rate of about 100 miles a day. It’s a windy coastline, so they have to wait for a calmish day. A film crew is all part of the convoy and the end result will appear on Channel 4 sometime in June.

2009 THE ROAD TO MOROCCO

Jan 9th. Left Alconbury in freezing conditions. Temperature first night in French motorway services near Le Mans dropped to –7 degrees (-4 inside the caravan following morning). Arrived mid-day Sat at the house: central heating full on & woodburner lit straight away.

Jan 14th- We’ve sold the house, we think! Now lots to do. However, we’re still proceeding with the holiday and have given our agent Power of Attorney to sign final documents should we get that far.

Our neighbour Paul has a friend Gerard. Chatting with them, Gerard became animated when he realised we were soon going to Morocco. Searching in his wallet, he scribbled an address on a piece of paper and handed it to us. “I once worked with a Moroccan, from Tiznit. You look him up, and tell him Gerard sent you”. Tiznit’s about the size of Huntingdon, somewhere down south in the desert. Yes, Gerard.

Jan 20th. Off tomorrow, but a.m. noticed a flat tyre on the caravan. PANIC as they don’t sell UK caravan tyres in France. Great relief: it proved to be a split valve which the local tyre depot refitted at no charge!



Jan 21st . En route: stopped for lunch at motorway rest aire, 50 miles north of Bordeaux. Unbelievably, this was also the location of a large outdoor exhibition of Romanesque carving, taken (pirated?) from local churches. See photo, the main exhibition is through the arch. We were enthralled by the skill of the 11/12th century stonecarvers. Rarther like finding a Constable exhibition in a layby on the A14.

Jan 22nd. Driving in rain & mist all day. Tonight (only) staying at Campsite Monfrague, south of Salamanca. Monfrague Natural Park has a vulture breeding programme, but we’ll need to see that another time. Next day arrrive Tarifa, most southerly point on the European landmass.