The Rock

It's time for another retrospective post from my Kodak-era photo albums. Gibraltar was one of those slightly quirky bucket list destinations I set out to visit while backpacking in Europe in 1990. My friend Dean and I squeezed in a quick overnight stop on the way to Morocco. We caught an early morning train from Ronda, a spectacular town in southern Spain, to the Mediterranean coast, on Saturday, 6 October. We then transferred to a local bus for La Linea de la Concepcion, a bustling town on the border between Spain and Gibraltar.

The bus terminated at an interchange located less than 500 metres from the border. It took us barely six minutes to walk to border control.  The duty officer gave our passports a cursory flick through before stamping them. For the first time in my life, I’d stepped onto British soil. Decades later it’s all too easy to forget that the same crossing had only reopened five years earlier after being sealed by Spain for decades. Locals we encountered still talked about living without an open border.

From the border, we walked two rather sweaty kilometres into Gibraltar’s central business district via Winston Churchill Avenue. The main road into town is rather unique. A couple of hundred metres beyond the border, it crosses the main runway at Gibraltar Airport. The runway is unavoidable. It extends the full width of a narrow isthmus linking The Rock and the Spanish mainland.

Temporary boom gates block the road whenever a plane is scheduled to land or depart. I recall standing in the middle of the runway, weighed down by our backpacks, with a white painted centre line extending in either direction. Ahead of us, the Rock rose in a dramatic silhouette along the airport boundary. It was an extraordinary experience, made all the more surreal after waiting at the boom gate for a plane to depart.

As an aside, the runway crossing is now closed to road traffic. A tunnel linking the border and the rest of the territory was open in 2023. The 350 metre tunnel passes under the runway’s eastern threshold. It took 14 years to construct thanks to a protracted dispute between the territory government and the private contractor appointed to build it. Pedestrians, cyclists, and mobility scooters can still cross the runway when it is safe to do so.

Dean and I booked ourselves into a rather spartan youth hostel in the centre of town and then set about exploring The Rock. Our first destination was the summit, or thereabouts. We walked there by tracing a narrow road zig-zagging its way up the Rock’s rugged and rocky western slope towards the Douglas Lookout. As we neared the top, we followed a walking track up the final slope, weaving our way through building-sized granite boulders. What happened next was one of the most enduring, indelible and visceral travel moments in my life.

As we rounded a final boulder, a breathtaking panorama of the entire Mediterranean coast came into view. Immediately ahead the Rock’s eastern flank dropping steeply into the sea. As we stood stunned by the unexpected view, the wind hit us full force. In an instant, we’d gone from a calm, nondescript trek to one that stimulated every sense. Nothing could have prepared us for the sudden sensory overload. 

Perhaps one of the more intriguing aspects of this view was the rainwater catchment area. The Rock’s eastern flank features a massive sloping sand dune. For centuries, the prevailing winds have deposited layers of airborne sand along its base. Beginning in 1903, the locals progressively cleared the steep and sandy slope, covering it with a timber frame capped by corrugated iron sheets. This massive platform, covering nearly 250,000 sqm, collected rainwater and channelled it through a tunnel to reservoirs on the Rock’s west side.

Despite its dramatic appearance, the catchment was never very effective in supplying the territory with fresh water. In 1991, just months after I visited Gibraltar, the system was abandoned, and desalination plants began supplying all the territory’s fresh water. I count myself lucky to have seen it while still in operation. 

The image above was sourced from Wikipedia. It neatly captures this unique structure from ground level. If memory serves me well, Dean and I never made it this far around the base of the Rock. It would be another 18 years before Garry and I finally witnessed it first hand. I’m hoping that at some point I’ll find my own stash of old photos taken in Gibraltar. That is, a collection of forgotten images that never made it into the photo album I’ve kept for 35 years.

From Douglas Path, Dean and I traced the Rock’s spine along Signal Station Road. It was here that we were encountered the bold and brash Barbary macaques living on the Rock. These creatures, originally from North Africa, have lived here for centuries. Local legend has it that for as long as Gibraltar Barbary macaques exist on Gibraltar, the territory will remain under British rule. 

Later in the afternoon, we toured the Great Siege Tunnels that weave their way through the northern face of the Rock. These are a series of tunnels carved by the military through solid rock high above the surrounding area. The complex included numerous caverns equipped with cast iron cannons pointed towards the Spanish mainland. These days a spectacular view across the airport and along the Mediterranean coast is the main attraction.

The following morning, Dean and I crossed back over the border and made our way to the Spanish port of Algeciras. Our next destination was Morocco, where I took my first steps on the African continent.

I've illustrated this retrospective post using a combination of images taken in 1990 and during a return visit I made with Garry in October 2008.