Robben Island

For nearly 400 years, Robben Island, 12 kilometres from Cape Town, was a place of banishment, exile, isolation and imprisonment. It was here that rulers sent those they regarded as political troublemakers, social outcasts and the unwanted of society. During the apartheid years Robben Island became internationally known for its institutional brutality.

The duty of those who ran the Island and its prison was to isolate opponents of apartheid and to crush their morale. Some freedom fighters spent more than a quarter of a century in prison for their beliefs.

Those imprisoned on the Island succeeded on a psychological and political level in turning a prison 'hell-hole' into a symbol of freedom and personal liberation. Robben Island came to symbolise, not only for South Africa and the African continent, but also for the entire world, the triumph of the human spirit over enormous hardship and adversity.
 
Robben Island has a thriving natural environment. Robben Island hosts about 74 bird species. These include seabirds, waterbirds and terrestrial birds. A few species have been introduced to the Island by humans such as the chukar and guinea fowl.The environment provides a sheltered and safe haven for this large variety of bird species. Many of the seabirds use the Island for breeding and resting.

Some birds from the mainland such as cattle egrets and black crowned night herons breed on the Island in large colonies.The African penguin is a species that was abundant in the 17th century but was eliminated by human activities. By 1983 however, the penguins had re-established themselves as a breeding population.?

The natural vegetation is classified as Strandveld of the West Coast similar to that found between Cape Point and the Olifants River. The types of flora and fauna on Robben Island has been affected by the built environment, and extensive plantations of shrubs and exotic trees, some of which was planted to provide shade for patients during the period the Island functioned as a leper colony.The spectacular veld flowers typical of the West Coast also occur on the Island during spring.

The boat trip between Cape Town and Robben Island provides opportunity to see a wide spectrum of seabirds and marine mammals including Cape Fur seals, Southern Right whales and Dusky and Heaviside Dolphins.Once on the Island, you will be able to see some of the 23 species of mammals, including small herds of bontebok, springbok, steenbok, European fallow deer and eland. Ostriches, lizards, geckoes, snakes and tortoises can also be found. The Island is actually the summit of an ancient, now submerged mountain, linked by an undersea saddle to the Blouberg. Its lower strata consists of Malmesbury shale forming a rocky and somewhat inhospitable coastline. Above this lies a thick limestone and calcrete deposit covered by windblown sands and shell fragments.

The Island is low-lying with the highest point at Minto's Hill (named after a nineteenth-century Surgeon-Superintendent of the General Infirmary) 24 metres above sea-level. The climate is Mediterranean, as in nearby Cape Town, but the Island experiences stronger winds and colder winters.

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