18th September

Osprey
John Bowering
Sat 19 Sep 2009 07:20

A busy day where we walked miles – even in so small a place as Gibraltar. The clocks are weird here. Gibraltar is on the same time as the rest of Europe – GMT +2 but is of course the southern most part of the continent. As a result it is still dark here at 0800 but light at 2200. It all makes for a slow start to the day with no one much around before 1000 and it takes a little adjusting to. We headed off for the cable car and botanical gardens at about ten in light rain – which became heavier. The cable car base is just beside the gardens so we thought we could kill two birds with one stone and hopefully find a hair dresser for Anita whilst en route. This worked out well and before we had got to the cable car we had an appointment for her at 1630. The cable ca ride was a bit damp in the rain but nevertheless spectacular and rises 600 metres almost vertically. It was fascinating to read the warnings about the monkeys which have obviously learned how to do almost anything, including opening handbags and removing the contents before the owner has worked out what is happening. There are huge fines for feeding them (500 pounds). After some of the Swiss ski lifts the Gibraltar cable car seemed a bit rickety – definitely best not to look down! At the summit visibility was initially poor because of the rain but this cleared after 15 minutes and we had the most spectacular view over the harbour, Spain and out to Morocco on the other side of the straits. The volume of shipping both in transit and at anchor really brought hope the importance of the straights and Gibraltar to world trade. We spent an hour wandering around the heights and if it had been a better day could have spent much longer there. The trip down was if anything more spectacular as we were facing down hill and the height became even more apparent. Very much shades of the film Where Eagles Dare. We then wandered around the very nice botanical gardens which are obviously treated with loving care and are divided into areas by botanical geographic region. A very pleasant place to stroll around. By the time we completed the walk it was 1400 and we decided to head back to Osprey for an hour before the hair appointment. On arrival back at the boat we found we had another group of admirers wanting to know about her and the time vanished. So - it was back up the road for the half hour walk to the hairdressers and John spent some time in the adjacent and not too salubrious pub whilst Anita had her hair washed and dried. On the way back we tried to book ourselves into Gauchos for dinner but that was full so we made a reservation for Saturday night. We have decided that after the weekend we will have to get some shopping in and start eating on board. The supermarket is quit a way from the boat so getting the shopping back to the boat will be awkward and even if we used a taxi, it could not get us too the boat because of the pedestrian area surrounding the quay. It may have to be a few short trips. We have a 1030 appointment at the hospital tomorrow and we will pass the supermarket to get there so we will make the first shop on the way back. The weather improved steadily over the day and we had a nice Mexican meal sitting in a café close to the boat and watched the sunset. Anita’s hand is not causing here any difficulty apart from it being immobile in the sling.