Day 4 - Thursday 17 May 2012

VICTORIA, VANCOUVER ISLAND


Yello tulips at The Butchart Gardens

 Weather: repeat of yesterday - gorgeous sunny day except a stronger, cooler breeze blowing.

A slightly later start today as we were off to have breakfast at The Butchart Gardens at 8am.
The gardens were only a bit further up the road from last night's winery. When we arrived, a buffet breakfast was waiting for us to attack!!! We had the garden all to ourselves until 9am.

Apparently, the gardens are more than 100 years old and were created by Mrs Jennie Butchart after the family limestone quarry was no longer in use. Instead of leaving the great, big gaping hole, she decided to create a beautiful garden. The garden is still run and owned by the desendents of the Butchart family.

There are separate themes throughout the gardens - The Sunken Garden (where the quarry hole was), The Rose Garden (we were too early for the roses), The Japanese Garden, Italian Garden, etc.
It was simply stunning. Some beds were being cleared of the spring flowers to make way for the summer stock.

Marilyn and I finished strolling through the garden in 45 minutes. Plenty of time remained to visit the gift shop and enjoying the sun. Unfortunatey, the breeze picked up and I got a little bit cold. So I ended up buying a red and white Canada hoody. I'm a real tourist now! But it was an emergency - whenever a cloud covered the sun, it got a wee bit cool and I was ony wearing a t-shirt and a thin jacket.

At 11am, it was time to go back and for those who were going whale watching (not me!) to have lunch and get ready for the afternoon.

After Marilyn and I had lunch, she went off on her whale watching adventure and I went for a walk to the harbour to see if I could get some good pictures of the Parliament building. I put on my thick windcheater first as it started to really cool down, yet the sun was high in the sky. I felt a littly foolish as some people were walking around in t-shirts and shorts.



Sunken Garden

 Took my photos and checked out some of the artisans' handy work. Nothing really caught my eye so I walked back to my room and started to write this down and downloaded all of my photos and videos.

Met up with Marilyn for dinner at 6pm after her whale watching. Aparently there were no whales to watch - just sea lions, seals and otters. We ended up at a little Italian place near the water and had pizza. I refused to eat another burger!!

It was really great to have a day of relaxation and not having to rush anywhere.

Tomorrow it's back on the ferry and off to the mainland, heading north to Whistler.