Gorham's Cave Complex

Before I was ensnared by World Heritage Sites, the geographic and cultural list that most intrigued me were the British Overseas Territories. Unfortunately, these last small vestiges of the empire tend to be the small outcroppings of rock nobody else wanted to claim in the middle of distant oceans and so are rather difficult to reach from the UK. There are a few notable exceptions, one of which is Gibraltar. Ceded “in perpetuity” by the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 from Spain to Great Britain, although modern Spanish governments have pushed to reverse this, Gibraltar is the last British foothold on mainland Europe. A quick glance at a map makes it clear the strategic significance of the naval chokepoint that control of Gibraltar affords and so explains why a fading maritime superpower would’ve wanted to cling to land like this to try and keep some relevance, to say nothing of the self-determination of the people who live on this small Mediterranean strip. It is rather surreal to walk down a high street that is architecturally Iberian but filled with stereotypically English shops like Marks & Spencers or Holland & Barrett. I arrived by air and had the equally surreal experience of walking across an active runway in the dark towards the looming illuminated shape of the Rock on arrival.

According to the tourist board, 86% of visits to Gibraltar are day trips so I was unusual in staying overnight. If you were only interested in the WHS tick, a …

March 2017 - More because of curiosity than visiting another WHS we went to Gibraltar. As we understood, it is quite expensive to park your car in Gibraltar, we tried to find a spot in La Linea. Luckily we found a spot for free, not too far from the border, so no worries about limited time in Gibraltar. At the border, there is a passport check and you have to cross the runway of the airport. Just before we wanted to cross, the border was closed and we had to wait for the arrival of the next plane. By feet you arrive at the main town of Gibraltar which is full of pubs, shops and tourist traps, that try to sell overprized bus trips to the Mediterranean steps and to the top of the Rock. Probably worth it, but our budget did not allow. We had a english early lunch and took the public bus to Europe Point, the southern tip of the Peninsula. From there you have a nice view at Marocco and for some reason, there is a giant modern mosque; a present of the Saudi King. From there you can walk along the east shore of Gibraltar until you reach the 3rd Battery. The viewing platform wasnt built back then, but at this spot you could look at the Caves entrances and it is in the corezone of the WHS.

Rather dissapointing is the other side of the road. Lokks like a garbage disposal and burning …

As indicated in previous reviews, there is no really satisfactory answer as to how best to “visit” the Gorham’s Cave WHS. In May 18 we decided from the start NOT to attempt to visit the Viewing Platform during its opening times. This was partly because its hours (10-2 Mo to Fr) were very inconvenient for us and partly because we weren’t convinced of the added “value” from so doing. We wanted to take our Spanish rent-a-car into Gib to avoid buses/car parking etc but didn’t want to make the crossing in the morning “rush” nor stay overnight there at Gib’s relatively expensive hotels. Indeed, at 1.30pm, there was only 1 car in front of us at the border and we were able to drive directly up to the Jewish Cemetery to commence our walk on the Rock inside the inscribed area before 2pm (and, when we departed the Rock at 9pm, there were no cars at all in a queue in front of us and we didn’t even have to stop!). Foreign registered cars are not allowed in the “Upper Rock” area but we found free parking off Windmill Hill Rd around the area of 36.118339, -5.345241 (turn right just before the check point stopping non-Gib cars) which is only a 10 minute walk up to the “Jew’s Cemetery” entrance.

We then spent over 4 hours exploring the “Upper Rock Nature Reserve” on foot including a descent of the Mediterranean Steps which pass through the inscribed area. …

A couple of months ago the new "visitors platform" opened for the Gorham's Cave site in Gibraltar. I couldn't find much information online, so just assumed it was a publicly accessible area, wth a few signs, like most lookout points. However, that's not quite the case in Gibraltar...

Firstly, upon arriving at the entry, there's a sign stating it's only open 10am to 2pm, Monday to Friday. Luckily it was late morning on a weekday when we visited, but it would be a pity if you travelled all the way here on a weekend, to find it wasn't open. Secondly, there's an entry fee charged. If you're also visiting the museum (which we didn't quite have time to include), it's 8 pounds, otherwise it's 5 pounds. Luckily, they take credit card for if you don't have any pounds on you. The lady at the counter said that the entry fee covered the signs along the platform (about 3 or 4) plus a "presentation", which I assumed was a video presentation.

We firstly looked at the signs and peered off to the cave entrances, visible just above the water line. Luckily the rain virtually stopped, improving the visibility (initially we couldn't see the top of the Rock, let alone Africa). We then let the lady know we were ready for the presentation. We ended up being very impressed that it was a personal talk by one of the very knowledgeable museum staff members. He gave us plenty of information, and was …

I visited this WHS in September 2017. I arrived at La Linea at sunrise and parked my car at the closest indoor car park to the border named Fo-cona. Just a quick look at your passport by the Gibraltar customs officials and I made it through to Gibraltar.

I visited on a Sunday because I had booked the Gorham's cave and dolphin tour and missed out on visiting the Gibraltar Museum. I was rather disappointed as the only difference from any other dolphin tour is a short cruising by the inscribed cave complex and the recorded commentary. There's nothing spectacular or anything which you can't see from the viewing platform or pavement at Europa Advance Road - just a slightly different angle.

My next stop was in fact Europa Point. I bought the all day Hoppa bus ticket for 3 euros from the bus driver and stopped next to the mosque. From there I walked to the concrete viewing platform and climbed over the useless gate to enjoy the view (top left photo). Next to the closed info booth (still no information boards) is the UNESCO inscription plaque (bottom left photo). It's a pity that the Gibraltar politicians were quick on the mark to unveil the UNESCO plaque shortly after inscription but then were not able to supply some sort of make shift information board until the viewing platform project is finalised.

I kept on walking till Catalan bay to see different parts of the Gibraltar nature reserves and already …

Gorham’s Cave Complex is Gibraltar’s only WHS to date, and it was the main venue of this year’s World Heritage Travellers meeting. This Complex comprises four caves where tangible remains of the Neanderthaler way of life have been found. No skulls or other bones have been discovered in these particular caves (yet), but the archaeologists have been lucky earlier this year to find a Neanderthaler milk tooth!

The Cave Complex is located at the southeastern tip of Gibraltar and its Rock. After casually strolling across the Spanish-British border and crossing the empty airstrip, we took bus number 2 from the town center to Europa Point. Europa Point is a collection of monuments and memorials such as a 19th-century lighthouse. The main landmark nowadays is the Saudi-sponsored Mosque of The Custodian of The Holy Mosques.

We all gathered a bit further up the road at the Europa Advance Viewing Platform. I had unsuccessfully tried to find it on a map beforehand: this is a piece of tourist infrastructure still in the making. Essentially the 1st and 2nd Europa Advance Battery are being turned into viewing platforms and small-scale interpretation centres. The Gibraltar Museum still has to clean up the 2nd Battery which has been used for firing practice by the army until recently. The 1st Battery is almost ready now: there are toilets and the structures to hold information panels have been placed. The information itself is still missing though, and the entrance to the Battery is closed to …

I travelled to the UK's newest WHS at Gibraltar in October 2016, particularly enjoying walking across the airport's runway after having landed on it 30 minutes before! I have for some time wanted to visit one of those few former outposts of empire that remain under the sovereignty of the UK, so was glad when this site was inscribed to have a good reason for travelling to one.

Unfortunately my experience of Gorham's Cave Complex was a fairly tangential. The visitors' centre is not yet open and I was unable to secure either a museum-facilitated tour or a boat ride to peer in from the sea. Given these constraints the best I could do was to walk down the Mediterranean Steps and have a look inside Goat’s Hair Twin Caves.

Nevertheless, the experience of reaching the summit of the Rock and beginning the descent of the Mediterranean Steps was one of the most memorable I have experienced in my 4 years of seeking out World Heritage Sites. With a pair of macaques eyeing us suspiciously and the wind blowing at several dozen knots the steep windy path down the edge of the Rock was both mysterious and daunting.

The twin caves felt very much like 'cave-man caves' - by which I mean I could have imagined Neanderthals living inside them as they in fact did. It was a shame I wasn't able to see the main complex, but I'll be glad to return to this British Overseas Territory when it …

When we planned our trip to Andalusia, the question was whether it would be worthwhile to include Gorham’s Cave in our itinerary. The caves are not accessible for individual visitors and at that time there was no information on guided tours to the cave on the websites of Visit Gibraltar or the Gibraltar museum. In early June, I wrote an email to the Gibraltar Museum, but never got a response. But now there seems to be guided tours into Gorham’s Cave for a limited number of visitors (see forum post).

So the best alternative for us was a "visit by sea". Dolphin Adventures offers such a trip, once a week on Sunday morning at 9:30, the price is 25 Pounds. The tour does not seem to be very popular, we were only 15 people on a boat for a maximum of 48 persons. The boat starts at the marina and goes around the peninsula to the eastern face of the Gibraltar Rock. After about 40 minutes we reached the caves. The boat stopped about 25 metres in front of Gorham's Cave (photo) and sailed slowly along the four caves: Bennet's, Gorham's, Vangard and Hyena Cave. This took about 15 minutes. It is not allowed to moor the boat and to go ashore. The caves are located next to each other right on the shore. Fifty thousand years ago, when Neanderthals settled there, the Mediterranean Sea was several kilometres away, since then, the coastline has significantly changed.

The Gorham’ Cave …

Nearly five years ago on what I nowadays call my first true world heritage trip I ventured to Andalucia. Out of curiosity I decided to also go to Gibraltar and look across the straights to Africa. Having been at Europa Point at the very tip of the island I must have been within 500m of the site, but didn’t know. As such this was a tragic near miss for me.

Thanks to our World Heritage Community Meetup 2017 and Ian’s and Els’ efforts I was able to correct this. Ian had arranged the tour with the Gibraltar Museum. They gave us a nice presentation providing the context you need to make sense of a prehistoric sites such as this.

Half of our group were allowed to the entrance of the caves to get a closer look. The caves are still active excavation sites with yearly campaigns being carried out each summer. The caves are also in an active military installation. And if this wasn’t challenge enough, the caves are located in a hard to access part of the peninsula at the bottom of huge cliffs directly at sea level. As noted by Els the sea level was way lower when the Neanderthals lived here. So the caves overlooked a 5km long coastal plain.

To get to the caves we needed to pass a control post at the entry of the military installation. They also made us sign some mighty tense waiver form and gave …