Robben Island and Table Mountain Hike

On Thursday the 9th of February the exchange coordinator had arranged a trip to Robben Island. After gathering early in the morning, we were taken to the Waterfront where the ferry would take us to Robben Island. The ferry departed from the Nelson Mandela Gateway, and after thirty minutes we arrived at the island.

Robben Island is a World Heritage site. Therefore we were't allowed to walk around the island alone. A bus took us around,and a guide informed us about the history of the islands and what countries influenced it. After a while the Dutch were mentioned, and as our guide had been to the Netherlands before, he started to talk about how terrible the cheese was (I agree) and that when the Dutch came to Robben Island they started eating the penguin population with cheese. After the bus had taken us past the major sites: Leper Graveyard, Lime Quarry, prisons of important people and a couple more, we were dropped off at the section where once Nelson Mandela had been kept prisoner. It was here that an ex-inmate joined us and told us his shocking experiences he had on the island. He took us past 46664's prison cell (Nelson Mandela was given a number) and showed us the garden that Nelson Mandela used to maintain. He told us about how he had been beaten by the guards, and that today he sits next to these men in parliament. After the ex-inmate had shown us around it was time to go back to mainland where we had lunch with the exchange group.

The next day, it was time to climb up Table Mountain. After gathering extremely early, to avoid traffic, a small bus took us to our starting point. The climb started off with rock stairs which continued for a while. After everybody had completed that, we climbed a bit and followed a path. The next stop provided us with some spectacular views of Cape Town. The path eventually took us to a part that we had to scramble up, using chains and metal bars sticking out of the rocks. After completing this it was then that Mr. Court (Bishops coordinator) told us this was the most dangerous hike in South Africa (5-6 people dying annually), which obviously gave us a lot of confidence. From now on it was pretty straight forward, a path took us around the mountain from where we could easily level ourselves with the top of Table Mountain. It was an amazing experience which we all enjoyed. It was quite chilly at the top, but the view was great and all of us sat down and relaxed. It took us around three hours to get up, and five minutes to get down. The new cable cars which spin around took us down in no time. It was cool because you could see the exact route which we had just climbed. After dropping the girls off at Herschels we went back to Bishops, and finished our memorable day off with a bit of pool.