Algeciras:

After a huge shop stocking up at the Carrefour Supermarché, we found the meeting place for the trip to Morocco.

Casa Bernardo's is a big restaurant/fuel station stop on the main highway along the Med coast from Malaga to Algeceris. The parking area out the front was to be our stop for the night as there were no campsites close enough for the early start for the ferry the next morning. Huge trucks also parked for long stretches or for overnight and roared to life every now and then, and took off. The chemical factory on the other side of the road made for a beautiful night view with all its towers and chimneys lit up like a laser show.

The other vans all arrived and we were pleased to discover that there are only five of us plus the leaders. A very small group considering that they can be, and often are, up to 20 in a group.

Ray, whose business called Desert Detours is conducting motorhome trips, arrived along with Alice the dog and Steve his assistant. We all got together for a meeting to finalise details, pay the rest of our money and generally meet each other. Dinner at Casa Bernardo's was a reasonably forgettable affair but the company proved pleasant.

Actually we slept quite well that night.

The ferry from Algeciras involved the usual wait in queues, though this is not the exit point from Spain - on the other side there is a small part that is also Spain. Makes you wonder why all the fuss about the British hanging on to Gibraltar when the Spanish are doing exactly the same thing over the water…

We were entertained while waiting (and waiting and waiting) to board by a bus load of young men all handcuffed in pairs and being lead around by a crowd of policemen - illegal immigrants being shipped back to Morocco where, we have been told, they are simply released just over the border, no doubt to merely head to Spain all over again.

The fast ferry takes only an hour and a half to get to the other side. We passed by the Rock of Gibraltar, huge and looming at the end of its peninsular, and could already see the other side with its matching mountain - the Pillars of Hercules indeed.