Octopus's Garden in the Shade

Monday morning finds us up early and on a tour to Vancouver Island. The island is 250 miles long and 50miles wide, so it is quite large and home to the city of Victoria, which is the capital of British Columbia. A small bus picks us up at our campground at 8am and we drive around Vancouver City picking up other tourists. At 11am our bus pulls onto the ferry that will take us on an hour and a half ride to Vancouver Island. It is is a new, clean ship that holds 2000 passengers and 450 vehicles including buses and trucks. Quite an operation and on time too.

On board there are lovely seating areas, a coffee shop, cafeteria and buffet restaurant. A video arcade, gift shop and newsstand are all there for your pleasure. They also have a naturalist giving a wildlife lecture and looking for whales along the route. It was a pleasant ride and we travelled between some small islands with gorgeous homes.

We all piled back into the bus upon arrival and drove directly to The Butchart Gardens. The place is amazing and it just shows what lots of creativity, money, good climate and love of flowers can accomplish. The Butchart family created this showplace at their home and there are photos showing the quarry that existed here before the transformation. We spent lots of time in the sunken garden which left a short amount of time for the roses and no time for the Japanese garden. A quick run through the Italian garden with the star shaped fountain and a whirl through the gift shop completed our visit. Too bad because they have some well rated restaurants. Only the rose garden has labels on the plants and a booklet is given to each guest which has photos and names of the other plants. I enjoyed seeing the roses named for Karen Blixen, Ronald Reagan and Elizabeth Taylor.

The bus drove south to Victoria and the city is small, but impressive. Set on a picturesque harbor, the Parliament building and the Empress Hotel dominate the skyline. There are some shopping streets and lots of restaurants. Tourism is a very important part of the economy here. I entered the government building to look around and was surprised that there was little security and no one was interested in looking in my backpack or having me walk through a metal detector. Jeff took a little snooze on the lawn and we did some shopping and then got back on the bus for the return trip.

Back on the ferry we opted for the buffet dinner and had a nice table by a window. Can't get a better view and the food was good. We finally arrived back in town and dropped off the other passengers and made our way back to the campground. Our driver, Gordie, was a nice guy and we enjoyed chatting with him. Folks up here are so friendly.