Robben Island Museum Memorial Run 2026 is a 10 km race on 5 December 2026, starting at 08:00 at Murray's Bay Harbour, Cape Town. The course climbs about 49 m in total.
From the harbour gate past Robert Sobukwe's house and the leper church, through the village and over Minto's Hill, across the island to the Atlantic shore, round the south point to the Table Mountain view, and home past the lime quarry and the Maximum Security Prison to the Moturu Kramat.
Murray's Bay Harbour, Robben Island, after the ferry from the Nelson Mandela Gateway at the V&A Waterfront. Each runner gets a ferry time in the race pack, first come first served. The first race starts at 08:00; after that you start when your ferry docks, and your start and finish are chip timed
By the Moturu Kramat, beside the Maximum Security Prison. You may explore the island afterwards and take any available ferry back: the last leaves the island at 15:00
It climbs about 49 m in total. The highest point is 29 m above sea level, at km 2.7.
Water at the start and finish. Earlier editions had no table on the island: each runner was given a bottle to carry and hand in at the finish
Nelson Mandela Gateway to Robben Island, V&A Waterfront: Wednesday 2 and Thursday 3 December, 10:00 to 18:00. Your ferry time is in the race pack
None published. The last ferry leaves the island at 15:00
R525 on Webtickets until 26 November, or until sold out. No entries on race day. Minimum age 14. A discounted Table Mountain Cableway ticket is offered with the confirmation
No official map is published. The line follows runners' 2025 race-day GPS tracks, the first year the course measured 10 km; 2023 and 2024 ran the loop the other way, without Minto's Hill. Parts are on gravel
Saturday 5 December on Webtickets. Western Province Athletics' calendar also lists Sunday 6 December; the 2025 race ran on both days because of demand
Medal for every finisher, electronic chip timing, medical support and a tog bag drop at the start. Parts of the route are gravel, and the 2023 race notes said it is not wheelchair friendly
Robben Island Museum, with the SABC and Western Province Athletics
From 08:00 · km 0
Every runner crosses Table Bay by ferry from the Nelson Mandela Gateway at the V&A Waterfront, about half an hour on the Krotoa. The first race starts at 08:00, and after that you start when your ferry docks, chip timed from start to finish. Murray's Bay Harbour was built for the military in the Second World War; the high wall that blocks the view of Table Bay was built later by prisoners. In 2025, 1,210 runners finished on the Saturday: Diimiseni Netswere won in 34:31 and Okuhle Gigi was the first woman in 42:23.
km 0.9 · Main road
Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe founded the Pan Africanist Congress. Arrested on 21 March 1960, the day of the anti-pass protest, he was jailed for three years for incitement. When that sentence ended in May 1963 he was not freed: a clause of the General Law Amendment Act, renewed every year and known as the Sobukwe Clause, kept him detained. He was held here in solitary confinement from 1963 to 1969, then put under house arrest in Kimberley, where he died in 1978. The first Memorial Run, in 2023, marked 60 years since he and Mandela were first sent to the island.
km 1.3 · Main road
From 1846 to 1931 people with leprosy were banished to Robben Island. The Church of the Good Shepherd, on your right, was designed by Sir Herbert Baker and built in 1895 by the patients themselves, for men only, with no pews. It is the only building left from the leprosy years. Their graveyard, which you passed at km 0.7, is believed to reach under the prison site: bones were found when trenches were dug there in the 1960s.
km 1.7 to 2.3 · Boundary Road
Boundary Road runs along the north edge of the village. In the leprosy years it divided the infirmary's staff from the patients. The village goes back to the British settlement built from 1806, at the south end of the island, and in the prison years it was home to the warders and their families. The course runs through its western streets, past the old primary school at km 2.2, to the foot of Minto's Hill.
km 2.2 to 2.7 · Minto's Hill
The one real climb: about 14 m in 460 m, up Minto's Hill to the highest point of the island, 29 m on our map at km 2.7. In Dutch times this was the signal hill, where fires guided ships at night. The 18 m lighthouse, on your left, was first lit on 1 January 1865, after the Forfarshire was wrecked on Whale Rock the year before, and it has run on electricity since 1938.
km 2.9 to 4.4 · Gravel road
Over the top, the course leaves the tar for a gravel road straight across the island. At km 3.2, on your left, is a gun position of the De Waal Battery, built for 9.2-inch coast defence guns in the Second World War. The restored No. 3 gun nearby was made in 1901 and arrived here in November 1940: 140 tons, with a range of almost 30 km. The guns were never fired at an enemy. The island's two airstrips, just north of this road, were built from 1940 to 1942.
km 4.4 to 6.3 · West shore
The west shore road faces the open Atlantic, and it is the flattest stretch of the course, 2 to 5 m above the sea. Robben Island Museum documents more than 70 shipwrecks around the island. On this side, the Tantallon Castle ran aground on 7 May 1901, and all 120 people on board were rescued. Early-December mornings here average about 15 km/h of wind, most often from the south-west.
km 6.3 to 7.4 · Church Street
Round the south point and east along the south shore, the lowest part of the course, 1 to 3 m above the sea. Near Edmonds Pool is the island's oldest quarry, opened in 1652, the year the Dutch East India Company came to the Cape. Its stone was worked for about 300 years for building early Cape Town, and with stone from the island's quarries prisoners later built the Maximum Security Prison.
km 7.6 · The viewpoint
The picture frame at the viewpoint holds the classic view: Table Mountain, Devil's Peak and the city across Table Bay, the mainland about 11 km away. Close enough to see, too far to reach. In 1658 the Dutch made Autshumato, a Khoi leader and interpreter, one of the island's first political prisoners; in 1659 he rowed a stolen boat to the mainland and escaped. Makhanda, the Xhosa prophet and war leader sent here in 1819, drowned on Christmas Day trying to escape when his boat capsized off Bloubergstrand. Since 2018 the city once called Grahamstown carries his name.
km 8.4 · Church Street
Back through the village on Church Street. The Garrison Church, on your left, was built in 1841 with labour from the British convict station on the island, in Cape Gothic style. Beside it, John Craig Hall, built in 1943, is named after the civil engineer of the island's wartime build-up; from 1960 the warders held their dances there.
km 8.7 to 9.1 · Main road
This year's run is themed From Protest to Purpose, 50 years since 16 June 1976, when police opened fire on school students marching in Soweto against being taught in Afrikaans. After the Soweto uprising, a new wave of young, radicalised political prisoners was sent to the island. On your right at km 8.9 is the Medium Security Prison: wartime barracks made into a prison in the 1950s, where common-law and political prisoners were held while they built the Maximum Security Prison.
km 9.2 · Main road
About 200 m off to your left is the lime quarry. From 1963 political prisoners were forced to work here, and later the leaders held in B Section, Mandela among them, dug limestone in its white glare for years; the limestone went to resurface the island's roads. In February 1995 about 1,200 former prisoners came back for a reunion, and led by Mandela they built the cairn of stones at the quarry's entrance, isisivane, each adding a stone.
km 9.8 · Maximum Security Prison
The Maximum Security Prison was built in the early 1960s by prisoners, with stone from the island's quarries. Nelson Mandela was first held on the island from May to June 1963. Sentenced to life in the Rivonia Trial, he arrived on 13 June 1964 as prisoner 466/64 and was kept in a small cell in B Section, the isolation block for the leaders. He was moved to Pollsmoor on 31 March 1982: about 18 of his 27 years in prison were spent here. The last political prisoners left the island in May 1991.
km 10 · Moturu Kramat
The finish is beside the Moturu Kramat, the shrine of a prince of Madura, an exile from the Dutch East Indies who died on the island in 1754; prisoners rebuilt it in the late 1960s. The last political prisoners left Robben Island in May 1991. It became a museum in 1997, and in 1999 UNESCO made it a World Heritage Site. Every finisher gets a medal, and you may explore the island before taking any available ferry back: the last one leaves at 15:00.
Route: no official map is published. The line follows runners' race-day GPS tracks of the 2025 race on Ride with GPS (the first edition over 10 km), matched to OpenStreetMap. Date, fee, entries, ferry process and number collection: Webtickets and runningcalendar.co.za. Rules: Robben Island Museum's 2023 race notes. History: Robben Island Museum, the Nelson Mandela Foundation, SA History Online, UNESCO. Results: WPA