In Time . . . Gibraltar will tumble,

It's only made of clay . . . (Continuing with the Frank Sinatra songbook.)

We left Granada and headed south towards Malaga, where we hit the Mediterranean Sea and the Costa del Sol, land of a million tourist developments, apartments and high rises, British tourists, and toll highways.

After forking out 20€ in tolls, we arrived at our campsite in La Linea de la Constitution, across the highway from the sea and within the impressive sight of the Rock of Gibraltar, rising like a prow out of the sand.

(Actually looking back toward our campsite from the Rock )

The traffic across the border to Gibraltar is terribly hectic so we parked on the Spanish side and walked across.  The first thing you hit on the other side is the Gibraltar Airport runway, flat land being in short supply, which you then have to walk across.  They halt traffic when planes are landing or taking off.

Then you walk along the main road buzzing with traffic, till you get to a busy pedestrian mall crowded with British tourists eating very expensive fish and chips. 

                                       Tourism central


Gibraltar has a long and illustrious history, I'm sure, which as a person of non-British heritage I'm not very interested in, but we came here to see birds migrating over from Africa.  (Janet was here to buy non-European style calcium pills, but that's another story).

We were told that if you walked the Mediterranean Steps, the raptors would be buzzing by you like, well, like Gibraltar traffic on its main drag.

We took the cable car up to the top of the rock.  Yikes, sticker shock after economical Spain, £20 each for the cable car and access to the natural park, or over $120 CAN for the three of us.

But the views were spectacular,

and the macaques (formerly Barbary apes) were cute and humanlike, until they grabbed you by the arm and  jumped on you and started undoing your knapsack zippers looking for food, all the while scratching their flea bitten bellies.  Not on us though, we kept well back.

Pensive  native ponders the future of Gibraltar should Britain secede from the European Union.  This is actually a big deal here as well as for the legions of British expats who've moved to the Costa del Sol and will lose the advantages of European citizenship.

We walked down to the Mediteranean Steps, all 800 or so of them, which go down the other side of the Rock.

Disappointingly, there were no raptors in migration, just a lot of yellow-legged gulls,

but it was a great hike.  The vegetation was surprisingly lush (I guess all the clouds coming from the Atlantic dump on it), with palms, and wild olives and the Gibraltar candy tuft (it's always interesting to me to find out where common garden plants originated).

When we reached the bottom we found the Gibraltar Ornithological Institute, with 2 very British looking ornithologists on duty, and not very busy, there being no migrating birds to observe. 

Then we had to walk back along the whole length of Gibralter,  back through the crowds of tourists, amidst the busy traffic, across the runway and then the border to get back to our car.  One thing about Gibraltar traffic, it makes you glad to get back to relatively relaxed Spain.

Posed in front of our luxurious bungalow, rented in anticipation of rain.  Real beds, a hotplate to cook on, reliable wifi and the devices all charged up!  Our campsite is run by an association for handicapped people, and presumably provides an income as well as employment for the residents.

One last walk on the Meditteranean before dark, where we spotted the bird of the day, the ringed plover, and several sanderlings, along a long and mostly deserted beach.