Our stop for Gibraltar is actually in Spain. The general consensus is that you would have to be more than slightly mad to take a campervan into Gibraltar. Parking is a complete arse, clamping and towing is the norm, overnight stopping is not permitted, the streets are narrow, there are low tunnels everywhere. TLDR: don’t even try it. So we pitch up at the Linea de la Conception Marina.
This is a great location although it is expensive and the facilities are rudimentary. But just for a moment – with the mothership parked overlooking the yachts and mega-yachts, you feel like one of the jetset. Of course we come down with a bump. All the doors around the place are locked – we are not allowed into the services buildings. Apparently being in a motorhome does not count as being a client of the Marina – even though we are paying €12.50 a night. So no showers, posh loos or wifi for us plebs.
The weather is wonderful for five days, but then takes a turn for the windy and rainy.
In the four of five good weather days, we do most of the tourist things on the rock but sadly, there is not very much to do and see on the Spanish side of the border.
On Gib, after more than three months, we actually enjoy traffic lights, bobbies, M&S, Waitrose, Debenhams & bacon nearly as much as the tourist spots!
We stock up on duty frees – it’s only alcohol and cigs that are actually good value. Although the territory is VAT free, the prices of highstreet goods seem to be inflated to cover the VAT saving and most things except booze and fags actually seem dearer than back at home.
There are a few cons going on too – the tour bus/taxi business seems to be a bit cut-throat. They chug from a few locations around town but in the middle of the aptly named High Street they will say anything to try and make sure you don’t make it to the cable car: Day 1 they told us it was in a different direction. Day 2 they told us it was much more expensive that it actually was. We met a few people with the same story but added they they had also been told it was closed for the winter and closed because it was too windy.
After a week we really wished that we had arrived here a week later and we would have loved to have stayed for Xmas, but it was not to be. If we stop for a week everywhere that we love it, we will never get around Europe in a decade, never mind a year.
High points for us were the views from the upper rock, the Barbary Macaques and the tunnels.
From Gib we are heading inland for a few days.
