Jen had encouraged us to book a trip to Robben Island if we were interested as the trips are booked up months in advance. Great advice (as usual). We were booked on the 11am sailing which meant plenty of time for breakfast. That was yum and everyone is so nice. Our tour also included a transfer to the ferry, which is really only 500m away but a bit awkward to find on a first visit due to all the construction going on and the hotel is located between the port and some main roads.
Once we were dropped off we advised the driver we could find our way back as that gave us more flexibility in the afternoon. There are nice walkways along the canals.
Capetown is very dramatic with Table Mountain right behind the city, which is predominately modern and has an Auckland waterfront feel only nicer, to be honest. 
We checked with the lady at the information desk at the Robben Island ferry terminal and she said if we had a reservation all we needed to do was go downstairs at 10.30.
We had some time so checked out the waterfront restaurant and shopping areas and watched boats come and go through a canal crossed by a footbridge that swings out of the way. 
When we got back to the terminal we queued with the other 3 or 400 people (including at least 3 school trips). You have to put your stuff through a security scanning machine but the guy in charge was a real comedian. As people pulled out their water and their food from backpacks he would say “it’s not a fridge” or “it’s not a microwave”. When the boys from a first XV rugby team rolled up he said “just bring out your knives and guns”. He’d do well in an airport. When it was our turn of course we didn’t have boarding passes because the lady at information didn’t bother to do her job properly and direct us to the ticket place, but the guy at boarding trotted off with our reservation number and came back with 2 boarding passes.
There were 2 ferries, one large and slow and one small and fast. We were on the small one and were inside given we boarded nearly last. It was also cold outside so that was no disadvantage.
The trip to the island took about 40 minutes and was a reasonably calm journey.
After disembarking everyone is directed down to these waiting buses and you journey around the island getting a commentary about the various sites. Robben Island is so named after the Dutch word for seals. It has a long history as a prison island and started out as a leper colony. It became a prison for male political prisoners in the 1960s and was closed in the 1990s.
As well as the barracks there is a large limestone quarry where prisoners had to work during the day without machinery. 
There is also a special wing inside the dog kennel area where an early political prisoner (Robert Sobukwe) was kept in solitary confinement, forbidden to talk to a soul for over 15 years.
Not surprisingly he went mad and they had to move him in case he died, which he did later after being released.
There is still a settlement on the island where many of the guides live, including some former prisoners and guards, who are evidently good friends now. The history of brutality at the prison and during the apartheid period was disturbing. It is quite remarkable how people can behave for no reason other than that’s how everyone else behaves.
The bus stops at one end for a toilet and food break. The toilets = 2 for the women, one of which didn’t flush as the mechanism was broken. Given there were 5 bus loads all at once, you had the genuine prison experience. 
After the bus tour one of the former inmates took us on a tour of the 2 types of cell block. He was sent there from high school as a student leader and was in one of the blocks that housed 48 men in one dorm/cell. It had a bathroom beside with showers that had hot water by the time he arrived in the mid 1970s. 
There are boards showing the different treatment for prisoners depending on their length of sentence and seniority, also depending on race. The blacks got less and different food than the coloureds. 
The prisoners got to exercise on Sundays and there were a couple of rugby and football pitches where teams could play each other within the same barracks/wing. Nelson Mandela was there for 18 years and spent the final 9 years of his sentence in 2 other prisons. One of our drivers (white) said what a shame it was for the country that he wasn’t released at least 10 years earlier to give the new nation good leadership for longer. Political corruption has been a concern raised by practically everyone we’ve met. As a political leader Mandela was in a different block in a single cell but could talk to others over the walls and along the corridor and had the opportunity for exercise in the yard, where he also had a garden.
The trip back was in the larger ferry where we had a good position out of the wind on the top deck. The views back towards Capetown and Table Mountain are great. 
After our return we found a lovely restaurant on the waterfront where we had a glass of rosé and some tapas before walking back to the hotel. 
We took a taxi to Baia Restaurant where Abdul (the hotel manager) had secured us a table, overlooking the harbour. 
