Nelson Mandela Capture Site

We were up for breakfast at 6.30am. It was nice to have a hotel buffet for a change! By 7.30am, we were on the truck and on the road. It was very strange only having four of us on board!

Our first stop was at the Nelson Mandela Capture Site. This is the place where, on 5 August 1962, Nelson Mandela was arrested. He was to spend the next 27 years of his life in prison. The on-site museum was opened in 2019 and tells the story of Nelson Mandela and the apartheid regime in South Africa in an interactive and compelling way.

There is a replica of the Austin Westminster that Mandela was driving when he was arrested. There is also a collection of stunning photographs of the great man.

The highlight of the Capture Site, though, is undoubtedly the iconic sculpture of Nelson Mandela created by artist Marco Cianfanelli and architect Jeremy Rose. The sculpture acknowledges the 50th anniversary of Mandela’s arrest and consists of 50 laser cut steel columns between 6 and 9.5 metres high. From the road, the sculpture just looks like a forest of steel poles, but when you walk from the Visitor Centre along a flower-lined path representing the ‘Long Walk to Freedom’ towards it, the columns magically transform into an image of Nelson Mandela. It’s a truly astonishing piece of work!Read more