PHIL: Hi all, it's Sunday 24th but I'm going to write about our visit to Robben Island a week ago. First of all I'm writing so late as we were all supposed to go on sunday but mark and paul were really ill so me and nathan went and we exchanged their tickets so we said we'd wait to write the blog when they'd been too.....which should have been yesterday. However, they got there and all tours had been cancelled due to high winds!! So they're going on Tuesday instead now - so I'm going to write about mine and nathan's version and then tune in again later in the week when mark and paul can add their accounts at the end of this one.

Anyway, the trip - we caught the ferry from V&A Waterfront at 11.30ish across to the island, which took about 45minutes. When you first get there you have to get on a bus - that looks like the bus out of 'Speed'!! Oh before that, when you pull into the port, all along the concrete 'pier' is lined with these black ugly looking birds - there's thousands of them, all stood in lines, all facing the same direction like soldiers, it's really weird - and they absolutely stink! Anyway, you all have a bus tour guide and ours was called Kent. He was really funny, he tells you all about the history of the island and the prison and the stories about the prisoners whilst you're being driven around the island and shown all the buildings and different areas. Within a minute of being on the bus I jnew it was worth the visit - it was so interesting straight away...and almost immediately I said to Nathan"We're so lucky you know".........It was mad hearing about what it was like and it not even being that long ago. Mandela had only come out in 1996 which is just too weird to comprehend - I was already 2 years into high school by then.

Kent told us how before the prisoners even arrived on the island they were made to shave all their hair off and were then shackled to someone either alot taller than them or alot smaller so that this would irritate them and make it harder for them to walk together in sync. He also told us of one political prisoner (who's name I can't remember right now but I'm going to look it up) who fought against the 'Reference Book' - this was a book that all black people had to carry round with them at all times and it had their photo and personal details in the back - like a passport - and listed where they were and were not allowed at ceratin times. If they were stopped by police and didn't have the book with them they were arrested and fined or if they had the book but were in a place they shouldn't be or past the time they were allowed there they were again arrested! It was ridiculous. So he fought against that and when he was brought to the prison he was such a political threat that they had a building built just for him to stay in and he had a spot of sectioned land outside that he was allowed to walk around in - he wasn't allowed anywhere else or to communicate with ANYONE - even the guards on his building were instructed not to speak to speak to him. The only people able to visit him were officials or media with authorisation - he was unable to even receive visits from any of his family until 4 years later when he became ill and started to show signs of mental illness. There's a book about him that I'm going to try and find and read, and also Mandella's 'Long Road To Freedom' - stuff I really didn't think I'd be bothered about before. Mandella wrote this while he was in there and buried a copy in the prison grounds but the guards found it and it was destroyed, BUT he'd managed to somehow sneak one out and it was published.

After the bus tour we got taken on foot around the grounds and into the cells and different sections by one of the former political prisoners (who's name I cannot even attempt to spell). He had been in there from 1977 to 1982 - he never said why he was there and nobody asked but he was very frank about what it had been like in there. He took us through the different diets you'd be on depending on your race - if you were coloured or asian you were on a different diet to if you were 'bantu' - one was double the amount and then got allowances for stuff like jam and syrup. He said that when he arrived it wasn't nearly as bad as it had been - in the 60's and early 70's you weren't allowed any educational activities, you had a mat to sleep on - whereas when he arrived it changed to bunk beds (still hard and uncomfortable but much better than a mat). Also before he arrived there, there were not just political prisoners there were common criminals too which meant it was a much more brutal place - the convicts didn't care and saw the political prisoners as weak so they formed gangs and were given better jobs in the prison than the political prisoners such as working in the kitchens and trained up with skills such as plasterers, bricklayers, plumbers etc whereas the political prisoners had to work 8 hour days in the quarries. They had a cave in the side of the quarry wall, 7 metres deep that they had to have their dinner in and also use as the toilet.

The prison wardens got the convicts on their side and were all against the political prisoners so they did everything they could to humiliate them and demoralise them. Until later on eventually the convicts started to form their own political views and started listening to the political prisoners so the convicts were all taken off the island to the mainland.

The living conditions when we visited I thought weren't bad! - better than our hostel!! But then we thought about the fact that obviously it had been totally cleaned for publis to view it as a museum now, the heat would have been unbearable at the time too and they wouldn't be able to just get a bottle of water or go outside at any time for fresh air.....It was really hard to imagine the true atmosphere of the dorms now. They all also had 15 minutes on a morning in total to all get showered, dressed and clean the dorm for inspection - in which all the convicts when there, got in there first so that the others didn't have time.

We saw Mandella's cell and it had the 'typical items' in there that they would have all had - a mat to sleep on, a small table with a steel plate and mug and a bucket in the corner. There was no door to the cell, just bars where a door would be, so no privacy at all. And we were shown where his vegetable patch was! Oh and also, in the quarry they worked in - Mandela worked in the Lime Quarry which affected alot of prisoners' eyesights - we were shown a pyramid of stones/rocks. Apparently one day when working, Mandella picked up a rock and went to the other side of the quarry and placed the rock down. Others followed one by one with different shaped/coloured rocks and it formed a pyramid pile. They were all a different texture, size, shape or colour and it was to represent how different each person is yet united we stand. It has been there since 1986 I think he said.

So yea, it was a pretty fantastic day and I'm really glad we did it, it was so interesting. R150 too - that's about a tenner! I'll leave anything else on Robben Island for mark and paul to add when they've been........

The next night (Monday), all the boys from our hostel went down to the playing fields and had a kick-about and me and a few of the girls watched whilst sunbathing. It was preety cool to be honest - the different nationalities involved in that game of 'soccer' as they called it - but we kept correcting them!! There were english, south african, german, dutch, swedish, american, finnish, indian....! I got speaking to a german girl who'd just arrived at 'Obs' the night before and she was really nice - she spoke great english as she'd been doing an american exchange for years so I actually thought for ages that she was american. She had good banter which was cool, but also annoying as we left the\at hostel two days later so it was typical I'd finally got some female company!! We all went for a meal together that night at a very authentic african place up the road which was really cool.

Tuesday we (us four) went to Kalk Bay - a tiny really pictoresque fishing town. It apparently does the best fish and chips but we'd already had a beauty ice cream when we found it so we weren't hungry! - can't beat Wendys in Elland anyway! So we wandered around here and watched the fishermen bring the crayfish in and then we sunbathed on the end of the harbour walk...great! When we returned to Obs that night though after tea we found it had been broken into - just one room though and it wasn't ours, but the german girl who I'd been speaking to and had just arrived had had her bag dragged off her bed with a pole or something and pulled through a window at the other side of the room - it turns out a catch on the small top window was broken so they'd put their hand inside that and opened the main big one and then used a pole or stick to drag her bag across - it had her phone in, her cards, loads of personal details,all her money that she had with her etc...she was well upset and had already had a rather bad start to her college course here, and was here on her own so I gave her some money to sort herself out and she spoke to the college who came round the next morning and sorted her an account out for her parents to transfer some money to her. That would take a while though so she really appreciated the money I gave her - so that was my good deed! I really felt fort her though, being here on her own and having a rubbish start and then having her things stolen....there's loads of people begging on the streets but I felt much more obliged to give to her as I knew where it was going and that she was genuine.

The next day, weds, we left Obs and moved nearer the beach, to Green Point and a hostel called Sunflower Stop. This one had a pool and a bar but I must admit, we were all pretty sad to leave Obs - we'd made allot of friends there and had settled, within the dirt and grime of it all! When we arrived at Sunflower though we found they hadn't received our booking on the net and didn't have the room. Instead, as me and nathan are a couple, they offered us an upgrade to a private room for two nights and then a different private room for the 3rd night!! Mark and Paul however did not get such a good deal - they could have the 1st night in the 'staff dorm' - the pool room -, the 2nd night in a private room and the 3rd back in the staff dorm......Obviously me and nath were well up for this but mark and paul were really getting the short straw. So we went to look at the staff dorm (we learnt later that this was known as the dungeon)....it was minging - there were 15 beds crammed in - bunk beds but for 15 people in all, no windows, no lock on the door so anyone could walk in, no room to store any of your belongings or even walk round at all and it was BOILING!! She said it would be cheaper (better flipping be!!) but that she could ring their 'alternate' hostel just in case anyway. I was obviously hoping the boys would go for it but would completely understand if they didn't want to as I'm really not sure I could've stayed there.....but they agreed!! So me and nathan spent three lovely nights in our luxurious rooms and really felt like we were on holiday!! Whereas mark and paul will tell you a very different story - they had to drink allot every night and stay up as late as they possibly could so that they'd just conk out as soon as they got in there! And they got bitten to shreds!

The first night there was a 'braai' at the hostel (a bbq) so we all paid 60Rand and had a massive feast and got to know all those staying in the hostel - there were two irish guys, Cian and Niall, who we became acquainted with very quickly and they proved to be hilarious!! The next day (Thursday) we went to Camps Bay Beach again, for the full day this time and then that night at the pool bar the Irish mentioned they were going on a wine tour the next day and we should go too so we did that on Friday. This was the funniest day ever!! We went to some well posh wine tasting places - 5 in all and got to taste 5 different wines at each place...one place was just champagne....and then you got to buy any you liked. The bottled were well cheap - nath bought one bottle that we all really liked and it worked out as under 2 quid for the bottle!! The irish bought a bottle at each place and then drank it on the bus between each wineland! They were wrecked! Niall, the little one, was wrecked allot quicker and he fell asleep on the bus and eventually fell off his chair into the aisle and hit his head!!Hilarious! Cian then got drunk and they collapsed by the pool (very nearly in it) when we got back to the hostel. We were all supposed to be going out that night but none of us made it! It was so funny though - the places we went were gorgeous, well posh and were told all about how to tell the age of the wine etc and the flavours you could get form certain ones.....ha it went straight over our heads!! We all just drank it up! At the first place nathan was drinking them straight down and the guide, Stefan - who was a laugh thankfully - said "Oh so you like the red?!!", dead pleased and impressed, and nathan just said "Nah, i just like to be the first to finish!!" Eee we really were not posh enough to be at these places!

Anyway I'm going to leave you there as my computer's starting to freeze and I'm worried I'm going to lose all this if I don't post it now...so I'll update you on more again soon and put the pictures on from the above xxxxx