Rolling around The Rock of Gibraltar

A few days in this unique BOT (British Overseas Territory), at the mouth of the Med.

Sep 04, 2024

Along and around The Rock of Gibraltar

Gibraltar and The Rock of Gibraltar have a long history of being fought over and defended. Just about every nook, cranny, hole and opening has some kind of concrete fortification remnants. Everywhere you look there’s walls, pillbox, forts, towers, random steps to nowhere, window frames, doors and batteries. Some are on flat, stable land, while others dangle precariously, high above the sea, on steep-sided cliffs. Inside The Rock are vast networks of tunnels and passageways. These all lead to various kinds of openings for shooting things out of or observing the bad guys. Any walk in Gib gives a sense of Gib’s fascinating history.

Camp Bay. More fortifications that swimming apparatus.

During our stay, we traversed the top of The Rock, walked a lap of it and also conquered the Mediterranean Steps. None of these are easy in the sweltering summer heat, but the Med Steps are the shortest of the bunch and can be tapped on the end of a traverse.

The walk along The Rock takes you into Gibraltar Nature Reserve. It’s a pay once, see all the things affair, with the main drawcard - and perhaps Gibraltar’s most famous attraction - being the many packs Barbary macaques that live up there. People say they will snatch your food from your hands if you walk around with it on show - and people aren’t wrong. We saw this impressive display of finger-grip strength on multiple occasions. The most entertaining was an attack on a family that saw a giant bag of monkey nuts (oh the irony) prised from the mother’s grip. The plastic bag tore and the nuts rained all over the floor. The gang of cheeky monkey thieves then set about scooping up and chomping the nuts, like a 75-year-old determined to get indigestion. It made for marvellous entertainment.

There are plenty of other attractions up on The Rock, but, well, you know: monkeys. Allow a full day to see all the things. And the monkeys.

A parent tends to an all-too-serious-looking child’s leg

Walking around The Rock is different. There be no monkeys, but some might say the pay-off for that is no severe gradients to climb in stinking hot and humid conditions. The route mostly follows the roads around the peninsula, with the one hiccup being a long non-pedestrian-friendly tunnel on the eastern side of The Rock. I’ll leave your imagination to decide how we tackled that.

On a clear day, you might get to see Africa, which is pretty cool. Standing at the Point of Gibraltar, the most southern point of the peninsula, the mountains of northern Morocco were clearly visible through the haze.

Views south from The Rock of Gibraltar, with Morocco in the distance

There’s also several swim spots, made up of sandy coves, with changing facilities and showers. Camp Bay is like a beachside resort, with pools and lifeguards; Sandy Bay on the eastern shores has a long stretch of sand and a protected swimming area. The water’s got that Mediterranean perfect-blue thing going on. If “get in the sea” is an insult in some parts of the world, it’s most definitely just a great idea round here.

My Strava says our traverse of The Rock was 9.4km, starting and ending in turn. Our lap of it came out at 14.8km.

People are awesome: Robbie Danger rides the world

This newsletter is dedicated to self-powered adventures in the outdoors. No jetski circumnavigations here, please.

There are people who hike Te Araroa, people who raft the length of the South Island, some swim from Aotea Great Barrier Island to Auckland and others run for 24 hours straight. Then there’s the ‘round the world crowd’.

Here’s someone in that latter category. Robbie Danger is cycling around the world unsupported and in doing so is attempting to become the first openly transgender person to cycle around the world. They’ve just completed 7,500km across North America, bike-packing from Vancouver to Montreal.

As their latest Substack post reveals, North America was far from a bumpless ride. The bike got pranged by a careless driver, putting Robbie in hospital. There was also an epic scramble to reach the airport in time to fly to Europe, which ended with them arriving in Portugal with no bike. Read the post for the full story:

Danger is my middle name

7,500km across North America

Hey folks…

9 days ago · 5 likes · 1 comment · Robbie Danger

Big respect to Robbie for attempting this massive feat unsupported! Any adventure without a full support crew is about so much more than the physical riding; planning, fixing, messaging, recording, disaster-mitigation and a whole bunch of unforeseen issues quickly eat into the daily travel time. As they point out, time management becomes a thing, as does the creeping jealousy of those who complete these endeavours with a full team.

Follow the rest of this epic adventure on Robbie’s Instagram:

dirtdroprobbie

A post shared by @dirtdroprobbie

Nods to the Gear Gods: Mountain Warehouse t-shirts go long

Quick high five to budget outdoor brand Mountain Warehouse, after a bunch of my beloved t-shirts by them stretched and turned into dresses.

One time during early COVID, I dropped my bro’s car at his MIQ (Managed Isolation and Quarantine - jeez, remember that?) hotel in south Auckland and decided to walk home to Eden Terrace, near the central city. En route, I called in at Mountain Warehouse, Onehunga and bought myself a bundle of t-shirts.

They were standard quick-dry affairs, in naturalistic pastel colours, with no logos on. Beautiful - just the way I like my tees.

I’ve been wearing them for years and proudly proclaiming them “the best t-shirts I have ever bought”. They fitted great, weren’t too hot, weren’t too cold, dried in an instant and were comfy as any artificial material could ever be. They were also particularly good under the pressure of a heavy pack. My previous batch of MW tees had worn well, but this new crop was blitzing them on all fronts. The seams of the older ones had started to lose a few stitches: normal for t-shirts that receive my kind of abuse over many years. But, this intrepid bunch remained immaculate.

That is until some unknown factors of travel these last few months turned a couple of them into dresses. Something about the northern hemisphere summer seems to be their kryptonite. They’ve thinned right out and doubled in length. I’m no fabrics expert, but I believe the term is stretched; they’ve stretched.

I can barely walk in one without tripping over. Zoe put one on the other day and it was down to her knees! I think someone might be getting a nightie for their next birthday.

Otherwise, awesome tees. Will buy again.