The Voyage East VII – Gibraltar

I did warn you that these posts would be somewhat erratic as I obviously pick up images at random. So after being fairly logical for a while moving from Port Said and Alexandria through Suez to Suakim and then Aden I’m jumping back a whole bunch of stages to the port that, for many passengers, was their first stop out of London – Gibraltar.

Gibraltar, “The Rock”, “Gib” did not elicit a lot of fascination for many passengers – impressive piece of geology but British Bobbies, English ways with a bit of Spanish flair and warm breezes were pleasant but not massively exciting. Most people didn’t think much of Gib because it was usually crawling with army and navy looking for those things the army and navy spend most of their spare time looking for – booze and floosies. How shocking to the genteel types on the passenger liners!

The two pictures I dug out recently in London show a bird’s eye view of Gibraltar Town (above) which looks charming and the South Port Gates of Gibraltar (left). The gates form part of the old walls and fortifications of Gibraltar. They were part of the town’s defences dating back to before the British originally intended to keep out pirates. Several sate of gates have been built over the centuries and the ones in this postcard were probably built around the early 1880s. They are still there today.

The Voyage East I - Gallions Reach: Where the Journey Began

The Voyage East II - Port Said

The Voyage East III - Alexandria
The Voyage East IV - Through the Canal
The Voyage East V - Suakim, Port Sudan
The Voyage East VI - Resupply at Aden
The Voyage East VIII - Suez- You Rather Hoped Not