Robben Island and Table Mountain

I’m a little late in putting up pictures from my trip to Robben Island and camping trip on Table Mountain, but better late than never! Robben Island was a very interesting experience. We had to take about a 45 minute boat ride out to the island with quite an exciting surprise on the way; we got to see a whale! It’s not whale season so I think this whale was a little confused but it was amazing to see how big it was! When we got to the island we all hopped on a big tour bus with a hysterical guide. At first the girl next to me asked if he was drunk because he was so dramatic with his stories and a little bit strange! It turns out that he is the best guide on the island and gives tours to all the dignitaries and famous people who come to visit. The tour was fairly quick and we stayed in the bus while it drove around the island. I couldn’t really get the feel of how the island was when it was used as a prison. It was eerie how all the wardens’ houses were still there and it looked like the houses were occupied but I never saw any people. Towards the end of the tour we got out at the actual prison. Our guide for this part was an old prisoner on Robben Island. He was put in prison for burning down a government building during apartheid. I couldn’t believe that someone who used to be a prisoner would now be giving tours. We also got to see Mandela’s prison cell which was very small. I still can’t fathom that Mandela was in prison for 27 years and a few years after being released, became president of the country!

Wow hiking and camping on Table Mountain was an amazing and challenging experience! I went with five other people and we had a great time. We started out by hiking up Skeleton Gorge which was extremely challenging! The guys had to carry mine and Elizabeth’s backpacks or we wouldn’t have made it up the mountain. The guys kept making me laugh which was not good because I was already out of breath from trying to keep up, so I stopped quite often to catch my breath! I realized how out of shape I am right now! When we got to the top of that part of the mountain there were several water reservoirs which were really neat. It was like a whole different world once you were at the top. There was sand all around the water and it was so pretty and peaceful. We continued hiking for about another hour and a half trying to figure out where we were going to sleep for the night. It was getting close to sundown so we were crunched for time. We ended up hiking to the Apostles and camping out on the edge of the mountain. The sunset was breathtaking seeing it from the top of the mountain and looking over the ocean. We couldn’t see the lights from downtown Cape Town which was a little disappointing but we were able to see the lights from the Camp’s Bay area. The area where we slept was pretty far off the path! The guys wanted to sleep on the edge of the mountain so we had to climb across all these rocks to get to a good place. After dinner we decided to start a camp fire down in a crevice between the big rocks. Elizabeth and I slept in the crevice while the guys slept out on the cliffs literally about to roll off the mountain! In the morning I found out something that really creeped me out! That night, before the Elizabeth and I went down to the campfire, the guys saw this huge spider that they said was as big as a crab! They killed it right next to where we slept! I’m glad they didn’t tell us until the next morning because I would have been thinking about that spider the entire night! In the morning it started getting really foggy and cloudy. It was awesome seeing the clouds moving towards the mountain. We decided to hike from the Apostles to the top of Table Mountain and the cable car station. I have to admit I was getting really tired! The hike was about another two hours uphill in the cold rain! I decided I was glad I wasn’t able to see anything around me because the trail was literally on the side of the mountain which would have scared me. We finally reached the top and got some food to eat. We tried to act dramatic and whenever we passed people walking around we would make comments about how we hadn’t had food for two days and had been up here for several nights. I don’t think anybody believed us! The hike down almost killed me! It was straight down and just weaved back and forth the entire way. I was really tense because I was afraid to slip and fall on the wet rocks but luckily none of us fell! It took almost two hours of non-stop hiking before we reached the bottom. We were able to hitch hike a ride with a nice couple down to the center of town to catch a mini-bus back home. Everybody was looking at us very strangely because we were soaking wet even though it was sunny down in Cape Town. This was a wonderful trip and a great display of God’s beautiful creation!
The pictures are of Devil’s Peak with Robben Island in the background, the ex-prisoner from Robben Island, and a cliff overlooking Camp’s Bay!