The sign said “Thank you for visiting the rock”, but the words “Thank you for having me” sprung to mind after I had an awe-inspiring sprint to the top of Gibraltar’s rock. The town is a quaint place with all the English touches you’d expect from a British colony, including the British price tags. Derek and I had five hours to get from the cruise ship docked in the harbour to the highest point on the rock and back. The ship won’t wait if we’re late and an employee missing the ship is a fireable offence. I have only been on for 3 days this contract and don’t want to have to deal with the bosses of the tin can - I work onboard Royal Caribbean’s Navigator of the Seas in the orchestra. To tell you about the antics onboard the ship will be another story, one I’ll tell later.
So the rock looked like a bit of a challenge with the time constraints, but luckily we quickly found a path with a sign that read “Danger do not go past this point” - we guessed we were on the right track. The path wound easily around the rock and at several points crossed the path of some pipes that looked as if they wound directly to the highest point - our destination. With that in mind we left the path to see if we could climb directly up. Derek was wearing climbing boots so he quickly made his way to the top of the shingled slope as I slid around at the bottom like a fish out of water trying to get a solid foot hold. When I eventually caught up to Derek I rested my weary arse on the pipes as he climbed on to see if there was a way over the peak. As I sat there alone I took note of my surroundings and started wondering how the hell I was going to get back down the slope to the path below.
The hill we had just climbed was full of loose rock which slid under foot and I worried I was going to slip down to the bottom, across the path below and over the cliff edge into the ocean below. Random gulls worried about their nests swooped down dangerously close to my head warning me that this was their turf and not mine. Derek managed to climb to the top and discovered there was nothing there to speak of. He slid effortlessly past me and back down to the path. Quickly being forced to gain the courage to get down to the path I shortly followed scrambling down on all fours back to the path and back to safety.
We marched on round the peninsula to the top of the rock as the sun came out from behind the clouds. On the way there were staggering views, lots more seagulls, and the goats hair twin caves full of spiders webs. We reached the guns foundations put up by the men of 4th HVY BTY R.A, Sept 1940. The windy view from the top was spectacular and made the climb totally worthwhile.
Back down past the many tourists and monkeys that exist hand in hand took little over an hour and after jogging down Castle Steps we made it back to the square where I had looked up at the rock a few hours earlier. There was even time for a beer before we headed back to the ship.
TRAVELLERS JOURNAL - BORACAY - Music to travel to...
www.cdbaby.com/cd/travellersjournal
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