We've never done a cave tour by boat!

We were originally planning on visiting the city of Brno, but it was such a nice day and there are so many hiking and biking opportunities that we decided to visit Vývěry Punkvy National Park instead. 

I had also read there are a lot of caves and sinkholes in the park, but we didn't know until we arrived that there is one popular cave tour that you normally have to book weeks in advance. And they just happened to have two openings for the 2:00pm tour!

So we did our driving in the morning...

A lighthouse with no nearby water.

There are over 2,000 castles in Czechia.

If you visited a different one every day it would take you 5 years to see them all!

Beautiful rolling hills.

Scenery along the way.

We found a free parking spot outside the park and had an early lunch. We then got the bikes off and rode them into the park.

Really nice roads for bike riding!

This stream comes out of a cave.

Ruth, having a look inside.

This is when we found out about the Punkva Caves underground boat tour!

We love caves, so when we saw that this tour included boats, we sat down and did some research. We've never done a cave tour by boat! It turns out that this cave tour is really popular and during the summer months you have to book weeks in advance. But it's not quite busy season yet, so we went inside to find out if they had tickets available. 

And sure enough, they had two tickets for the 2:00pm tour at 280 korunas ($15.35 CAD, $12 USD, €11.35) per adult. 

We had 45 minutes or so to wait, so we went for a walk.

Yep, there are lots of caves.

Part of the attraction here is also a huge sinkhole. As part of the cave tour, you go to the bottom of the sinkhole, but you can also hike up to the top, or take a small cable car to the top. We didn't have time to do the hike before the tour, so we would do it after the tour.

Just before 2:00pm we gathered at the tour start point in the ticket building. We noticed that quite a few people had jackets and sweaters, even though it was a really nice day. We were in shorts and t-shirts, as were a few other people. A lady came out and said a few words in Czech and we saw some people follow her and come back with sweaters. Apparently it is cold in the cave! Between 6C to 10C (43F to 50F) and the water temperature is only 4C (39F). We also asked for sweaters!

This is about 3 meters (10 feet) tall.

Another couple of hundred years and these two points will join.

We've actually been in better caves. And we don't really like tours... we'd rather explore on our own. The tour was sold out so there were 36 people in the group. And it was all in Czech (which was to be expected), although we were handed an English information sheet. 

But, it also did have some highlights, such as being at the bottom of the sinkhole.

At the bottom of the sinkhole looking up.

Our group at the bottom of the sinkhole.

Then it was time to get in the boat.

Coming out of the cave by boat.

Not fantastic, but still an enjoyable hour.

We headed up to the top of the sinkhole.

Me!

Hiking and biking trails are well marked all over Czechia.

We made it up to the top of the sinkhole. There was no point in trying to take photos... it wouldn't fit into one photo so it didn't give you any perspective. But I took a short video for you. You can see where our group had been standing at the bottom...

We rode our bikes back to Max. It was after 4:00pm but we decided to do some more driving. It was only 45 minutes or so to a possibly beautiful overnight spot. Plus, we were running low on water and really need to fill up!

We found a drinking water spring on the side of the road, but it was too far away to run a hose. There wouldn't have been enough pressure anyhow. But we carry a 10 liter jug so we filled that five or six times.

It wasn't fast, but you do what you have to do!

Interesting spring.

It even had a water quality test sheet on the side of the well.

Me, filling up Max.

We drove up to the top of a hill to find what did in fact turn out to be an absolutely perfect overnight spot. It turned out to be the top of an old ski hill... there was still the remains of an old chairlift.

Views from our parking spot.

Max, parked at GPS 49.477083, 16.312178

The end of another great day.

Today, we head closer to Prague. We are not going to visit Prague this time around. We were there in 2012. Although, we have friends who live in Prague, and they are going to join us for a hike on Sunday at a castle southwest of the city. So we are heading to that castle over the next two days.

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Nice price drop on this Rooftop Cargo Bag.

And in Canada...

Bedstory Memory Foam Mattress Topper.