Czech & homewards

Ceske Budejovice

Having checked out our options for selling Vanni in Děčin in northern Czech Republic, we headed south back to České Budějovice to see what we could do there.

Our campground in České Budějovice was in lovely park-like surrounds and an easy walk into the town centre. 

Vanni

After several trips and explorations into the centre, we were reminded of how lovely it is with many beautiful buildings and an attractive town square.

Our stop in České Budějovice was also useful in giving us both time to recover from a head cold.

A week or so after our arrival, a potential buyer was recommended to us and after a couple of meetings, we had a deal on Vanni. 

Campsite, České Budějovice 

He wanted to drive her away the very moment of sale, but we headed back to our campsite to unpack her first, then he picked her up at 6 pm that night.

It was a huge relief to have the sale completed, but oh, so sad to see Vanni driven away by someone else – never to be seen again by us.

The camp in České Budějovice had bungalows as well as the motor camp, so we lived in a bungalow while we were organising to get home.

Night view of Prague

We had planned to ship a lot of our Vanni things back to New Zealand. 

Luckily, our bungalow was spacious so we were able to move everything from Vanni into the bungalow (with tremendous help and support of the campground staff).

Then we able to have room to sort and pack it ready for shipping.

It was a little chaotic for a while as we couldn’t believe how much stuff we actually had but order was restored as we got things packed into boxes. 

Next move was to have the boxes picked up and taken to the docks – all managed ok. 

We should see them next in New Zealand at the end of December or early January.

We were very sad to see our Vanni go but we couldn't keep her and now want to move onto our next adventure – maybe Vanni 2 in another part of the world!

With everything sorted and packed, we caught the Student Agency bus to Prague where we stayed for a night.

Leigh & pork knuckle

We stayed in a lovely  hotel right on Prague’s famous Wenceslas Square.

Prague is a very easy city to walk around and that evening, we walked and walked, enjoying the lights and huge numbers of people everywhere.

We stopped at a local restaurant to sample our last taste of local Czech food.

Leigh had an enormous pork knuckle which filled the whole plate - and excellent wine before heading back to our hotel.

The next morning, a short walk took us to the station to catch a bus to the airport and our flight to London then Hong Kong.

We were very relieved that they put our bags on without a comment as they were just a little overweight!

We had two nights in Hong Kong to adjust our body clocks to a different time-zone, and spent some time exploring Hong Kong Island.

We wanted to go to Victoria Peak via the Peak tram but there had been an accident on one of the bridges so the tram was closed. 

Hong Kong City scape

Undeterred, we caught a double decker bus instead. 

It was quite challenging going in a big bus up a steep, narrow and winding road but we made it. 

Glad we weren’t in Vanni!!

Hong Kong protestors

We also walked around the impressive waterfront and navigated our way through the many tall buildings and tiny wee streets of the city – an intriguing place.

Public demonstrations by the pro-democracy movement had caused the closure of streets in many places but it was a peaceful demonstration (as far as the protestors went) and we had no concerns about being there.

Hong Kong-fishing village sampan ride

On our second day, we visited Aberdeen fishing village on the other side of the island, and had an interesting boat ride around the harbour with an older Chinese woman who was a real character.

Then we bussed back into the city, picked up our bags from the hotel, caught the express bus to the airport, and completed a quick check in with no overweight bags - whew!

Landing at Auckland made us realise how small New Zealand is - after the big airports we had passed through overseas, it looked like a provincial airport with not many planes or people.

We were sad our European travels in Vanni had come to an end, but happy to be back in New Zealand. Seeing green land and blue seas, and knowing we could safely drink the tap water was great. Even better was the prospect of catching up with family and friends again.

Now to get on and plan the next trip!