Do What? Where?
Gibraltar is one of the last vestiges of empire, I guess. A British Overseas Territory stuck on the bottom end of Europe, with a good view of Spain, Africa, and, strategically, The Strait of Gibraltar. It was a handy stopping off point for the British Empire on their way to defend their interests in the Mediterranean and Africa.
But enough history. Why go there?
Until recently it had very little appeal as a geocacher. There weren’t many here. Earlier in the year though, they began a parkrun here too. So I checked the map again and there were now in excess of 60 caches available (if you include labs). That combination seemed to make it worthwhile. Anyway, I like a spring break and Gibraltar seemed like a good enough place to spend a long weekend.
The Booking
I in fact made it a very long weekend, arriving on a Wednesday and staying until Monday. In hindsight I may booked one day too many, but that meant I didn’t need to rush, and there’s merit in that.
I initially looked at individual bookings, but as is often the case, booking flights with BA directly though their website comes out just as cheap as using a “low cost” airlines (once you add in the fact that you need luggage), and also BA offers more flights per day. They only offer them from Heathrow, but I thought that wouldn’t be too bad. Turns out that Heathrow is just two hours away from Measham, so not really a hassle at all.
What did surprise me (and it shouldn’t) was the quite poor selection of hotels on the various booking sites. There didn’t seem to be many and all were expensive. For that reason I decided I might as well go “upmarket” a bit. That made it economically advantageous to take a packaged deal through BA Holidays, which offered a combi deal with BA flights and the fairly swanky Eliott Hotel for about £400 cheaper than booking them alone. The only downside was not being able to pay “at the property” for the hotel.
Eating
The Eliott does a buffet breakfast included in its rates. That meant I basically could survive on that plus drinks/snacks each day until the evening. That’s how I like to roll on a holiday. I’m not one for long lunch breaks, to be honest. I never need the food and I always feel that a long lunch break interrupts a busy day.
Restaurants in Gibraltar were fairly plentiful and familiar. There were a selection of UK-familiar chains for coffee, pizzas, and so on. In addition there are pubs, most of which do food. They seem to cater primarily to the “Brits abroad” market. And then there are lots of local restaurants.
Eating out didn’t seem too expensive. Most nights I was able to eat a 2-course meal washed down with a few beers for well under £30. That’s quite difficult to do now on the UK mainland. I suspect a part of that is much lower alcohol taxes.
Stuff to Do
I bought a “What to do with 2 days in Gibraltar” tour book. I figured that would work out. When you’re caching you maybe cover the ground at a lesser speed than other tourists, because you keep getting distracted. The book was very useful in helping me to prioritise.
What it said was that you should always go up onto The Rock as soon as possible. It’s the best bit, and it’s the reason most people go. While I was there, the cable car was closed. It’s being replaced by a bigger and more modern one. So at the moment you need either a bus/taxi tour of the rock, or you need some walking boots. I opted for the latter (because of the geocaching). At the time of year I went, the walk up is really pleasant. It’s not strenuous really – it took me maybe 90 minutes of walking from the bottom. You can stay entirely on roads with good tarmac surfaces if that’s what you want or need. There are more entertaining paths too, and I needed some of those to get to several of the geocaches.
Monkey Business
My experience with the monkeys is that you don’t need to worry. Maybe I smell, or don’t smell of food, but basically none of them came anywhere near me at any point. I walked “right close” to some and they just ignored me.
I discovered the week before coming that parkrun was cancelled on the weekend I was here. That is a disappointment, but I’d already paid, and the cost of changing a fully pre-paid trip 5 days before departure was, shall we say, enough to pay for a second trip. So at some point I’ll just come again, maybe with some running friends, just to do parkrun and go see the monkeys again.
Summary
It’s been an enjoyable trip. There was enough caching for me to do a few every day, but few enough to be able to clear pretty much all of them. Food was good and not expensive. The weather was lovely (20-25 degrees with sunshine and a pleasant breeze every day). The hotel was more expensive than usual, but it’s right in the middle of town and the room was well furnished and enormous. I’ll come again one day, to do parkrun and to go find that last remaining geocache.
