Getting a Run in at Lunch (Gibraltar)

Cruise life generally means working split shift, meaning several hours working, several hours off, followed by several hours working again, in one day. For me, I generally work around 7am until noon and 4pm until 8pm.

People on land hate the mere idea of this.

When you work on a ship, it is perfect… because lunch is ashore.

Today I spent “lunch” racing up the Rock of Gibraltar, literally. I found some mention of a hiking trail online and off I went.

The cool thing about ship life is that you can just do that, leave the office and do something awesome like hike The Rock of Gibraltar at lunch. The stupid thing is that you absolutely must be back to the ship by sailing or, you are fired. Period.

This perspective does not at all do justice to how amazingly steep this hill is.

I decided to do a loop, meaning I would go to the furthest point one way and back a different way. As I had no idea how long this would take, it was a bit of a risk. If I mis-calculated, I would be jobless. Hence, I raced up The Rock.

Trail along the ridge line.

"Slipping is ill-advised." Queen's English for "Slip and you f^%*ing die." That building at the bottom is six stories high, just to give you an idea how dramatic the incline is.

Any trail where the birds are resting below you is a precarious.

The view which really made it worth it.

 Obligatory Gibraltar monkey shot. There are somewhat domesticated monkeys at the top of Gibraltar.  (They are somewhat domesticated the same way the monkeys in Malaysia are. They are fine, unless they think you have something tasty. Then all bets are off.) To the left of the monkey is my ship in the background.

And finally, the monkey showing us the door at the funicular back down to the town. (Sane people take the funicular up instead of running up the south side of the ridge. )