Arrived safely back in Cape Town on the Premier Class sleeper train. The train itself was really good - fabulous buffet lunch in a dedicated passenger lounge in Johannesburg station, followed by a champagne reception on board the train. Dinner was fairly simple but was still 5 courses served in a formal dining car. The next day, following breakfast and lunch the train arrived into Johannesburg about 40 minutes late - not bad for a 26 hour journey!

The plan for Cape Town was again to chill out for a bit, enjoy being back in the city and also to do some touristy things. This time round my hotel was right in the centre of town, just off Long Street which is the main pub / backpacking street in which I must admit to having a few beers, including one night out with a fellow hotel guest and the hotel bar staff which also involved quite a bit of vodka and a few late night / early morning games of pool…

On the touristy side of things I did the trip to Robben Island which I had booked last time I was in Cape Town. I'm not sure what I had expected, but it wasn't what I found there. The island initially appears a lot more lush than I had expected. As the boat pulled into the harbour the first sights were of sandy beaches, green eucalyptus trees, and seals basking on the rocks - not the expected first impression of a harsh prison island. We found out later that the island wasn't as lush as first thought. The eucalyptus trees were planted in the early 1900's and have taken over the island. However, with each tree drinking about 30 litres of water each day they have drunk the island dry, to the point where now all water on the island needs to be shipped in from the mainland. The first buildings that we saw looked more like holiday chalets than a prison - although these turned out to be the houses that the guards used to live in. The prison itself was as you would expect of a prison, with a mixture of shared dormitory cells and individual cells. Of the individual cells only the fourth cell down on the right hand side still has the original furniture in it - that cell having being home to prisoner 46664. The last two digits denote the year the prisoner arrived on the island and the digits before it denote what number arrival that year the prisoner was. In 1964 the 466th prisoner to arrive that year was Nelson Mandela.

Of the stories that our guide told us, 2, which were unconnected with the prison, struck me as being typical of Africa in general. We passed a large machine gun cannon pointing out towards Cape Town. The South African government had decided that they needed to build them in order to protect Cape Town harbour from attack during the second world war. With typical African efficiency and timeliness, they were only completed in 1947 and have sat there unused ever since! The second story concerned the ambulance that was parked near one of the buildings. Although the island has an ambulance, there is no doctor, no surgery, and no hospital. No one is quite sure where the ambulance would take you if it's called out…!