Robben Island

After waiting in the Robben Island Museum we took a very slow boat over to Robben Island that took about 75 minutes. A lot of the group had gone on a safari instead.

When we arrived we had a bus tour of the prison premises and we saw the lime quarry where the prisoners had worked for eight hours each day without any protective gloves or goggles. They told us that Nelson Mandela had so much dust in his tear ducts that he could not cry tears when he left prison and had to have an operation on his eyes.

After that we were shown around the inside of the prison by an ex-political prisoner. We saw the courtyard were Nelson Mandela had kept a small garden and had hidden his diary in the soil.

We also were shown his very tiny cell!

It was all very moving how poorly the people were treated at the prison and all the group that visited were very pleased that they went and learnt a lot about life in the prison.

Coming back it took only 25 minutes in a super fast catermoran. It was brilliant fun and we had to hold on very tight.