Strap yourself in, this is going to be a long one; Gibraltar. Day 2

It's a slightly cool morning as we wait outside our hotel at 8.20 to be collected for our day trip. Along comes the coach just 10mins late (Glenn has been inside to ask if they can be phoned and they think he is mad...'it's only 10mins late' they say), the tour guide checks we have our passports and we are off. A lovely comfy coach about two thirds full so we had ample choice of seats and great views as we travelled along the Spanish coast.

Antonia gives information about the provinces and population and such as we go, in English, French and Spanish. Sadly English seemed to be her worst one although, if we understood French we might have found it was that. Anyway, we caught snatches of interesting information but generally we just enjoyed the landscape and the calm, open roads that we have missed for the last 9months.

As 'The Rock' gets closer we become more and more awestruck, it is magnificent and we are pretty excited at the prospect of ascending it. For your information, the rock is on the Iberian peninsular and covers 6.843 square kilometres. It ceded to Britain in 1713 under a Spanish treaty. There has been continual pressure to return Gibraltar to Spain but referendums have consistetly voted against. In 2006 an agreement was reached that it would more or less govern itself and public buildings are gradually being given to 'the people' for redevelopment. However, defence and foreign relations remain the responsibility of the UK.

We arrive at the border/checkpoint where we are asked to show our passports. The official takes one from a gentleman near us, looks at it suspiciously and then says 'That lady up there says she is your wife.' The man shakes his head and the official walks back toward the front, with his passport, picking up the woman as he goes. They disappear and we all sit there for about 10mins. A woman accompanying the 'illegal' woman got off and came back, and eventually the man gets off to see what is happening to his passport and comes back satisfied. Finally the official reappears and returns the man's passport, but the woman does not reappear; she clearly does not have a UK visa. An exciting interlude for a while but then we just wanted to get on.

What a surprise to get to the rock across the causeway we drove across the city's runway for the airport...look left, look right, completed this year...when a plane lands they just stop the traffic till its parked.

Gibraltar has a population of 35 thousand people of many nationalities. Much of where they live is high rise apartments on reclaimed land outside the defence wall which is still quite intact and there are still a couple of cannons mounted in their original positions. Our coach parked at 11 am and told us to meet back at 12 for our minibus tour up the rock. This was just enough time to sit and have lunch.

Our mini bus holds about 22 people and the driver plays a French audio guide after he has talked in VERY fast English with a Spanish accent....pay attention if you want to hear the info. No buildings are ever demolished on Gibraltar, if they are in need of repair then that is what they get. Lots of wartime buildings such as army barracks have been turned into apartments. The rock has been continually expanded by reclaiming land , the wall you see in the pics is the sea wall for the original rock..however they have (i guess) nearly doubled the size through reclamtion. Our mini bus driver told us that having been born on 'The Rock', his Dad had taken him fishing in a particular spot and then at 18, his Dad had taken him back to that same spot to teach him how to drive, not as I first thought a boat, but a car. I did wonder how much sea you are allowed to reclaim.

We stopped at this lighthouse as Africa came into view and had 15mins to look around and take pics. At this point, Glenn notices that the questionable passport man is communicating with the evicted woman's friend...hmmm something fishy here.

Near the lighthouse was also a lovely little waterfall, the interesting part of the waterfall is that its man made.. its the outlet for the desalination plant that hte island has to produce its drinking water, but beautiful nonethless.

We breathed in as we went through some really thin tunnels and held on as the climb got steeper and the road got closer to the edge of a sheer drop. We spotted our first monkey and felt my pulse rate increase slightly....if you remember the incident in Bali when a large male thought I might like to give him a piggy back ride.

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