Our day started with a a slow, twisting drive through green mountains dotted with white villages hanging to the sides of, or sitting on top of, the hills. Though this section of the day was somewhat testing on the driver it was very picturesque. Eventually we dropped down onto the coast where the fierce wind we had been feeling all day had whipped up a dense haze and very large white caps on the sea. As a result the massive rock of Gibraltar which should have been easily visible during our decent to the coast was only occasionally seen.

Our intended camping spot for the night was a marina parking lot on the harbor front of the Spanish town of La Linea not more than 300 meters from the Gibraltar border. In addition to general parking the marina provides an area for autocaravanas plus washing machine, dryer, toilets and sani-dump. It cost us 12 Euros to park for one day and for that we we were within walking distance of the border and an ocean front position. Seemed to us very smart of the marina as the facilities that motorhomes require are very similar to the facilities that are required by transiting yachts.

After getting into the parking lot and getting organized we were off on our visit to Gibraltars famous rock. This required crossing the border from Europe into the UK, a perfunctory affair that I am sure recorded nothing of anyones movements.

At the border we bought a combined cable-car and shuttle bus ticket that turned out to be a stroke of luck because at the cable-car terminal there was a huge line of people waiting to buy tickets; which we simply bypassed.

The rock, and the views from the top are really spectacular - more so than we expected - and the famous monkeys were present with crazy tourists breaking all the rules and feeding them and touching them, and some even allowing the creatures to climb onto their heads and backs. I guess not many people have seen what an angry monkey can do to skin.

We spent the next hour or so walking a series of roads and paths down from the top of the rock. Along the way getting haze impaired views of Gibraltar town and the surrounding bay, being crowded by tour vehicles squeezing along the narrow paths and roads and watching even more monkeys.

From the bottom of the rock, after our decent we walked back to the border and then to the marina parking lot. One of the more novel features of the walk is that it traverses the runway of Gibraltars only, main, and still operational airport. About 20 minutes after we crossed it we saw a passenger plane headed for the UK take off.

The rock was an experience I am glad we did not miss.