Early start at 7.15am for a drive to nearby Butchart Gardens, floral show gardens built by the wife of a man who made his money mining lime. She was appalled at the 'mess' this created so created a garden of beauty to compensate. Breakfast in the dining room of the former Butchart residence, overlooking just one of the many garden areas, followed by an hour or so at our own leisure walking through the various themed garden displays - the Japanese garden, the Sunken Garden, were specially beautiful. Having breakfast there meant we had the gardens to ourselves until they opened to the public at 9am. By 9.30am it was hard to get a photo without people in it. Damn tourists! Anne and I recaptured our childhood with ride on the historic merry-go-round. Only $2 a ride.
Bus back to the hotel for a quick freshen up then away for our afternoon free-choice activities - Anne and Bob on a horse-drawn carriage tour of Victoria, Val on a whale watching cruise and Greg on an historic walking tour of old Victoria.
If you are hoping to see pictures of whales you'll be disappointed. We did see one humpback, Split fin, but he was just lazily feeding in the channel, surfacing from time to time to blow a bit of spume but no tail action to speak of. We had to cross into American waters to follow him for a while. Whales have bad breath - when we travelled past where he had recently been, the smell was very unpleasant. The weather was perfect for a day on the water and we stopped off at a nature reserve on the way back and saw seals, sea lions, elephant seals fighting and flopping about on the rocks. BTW down wind of them is rather ripe too.
If you are hoping to see pictures of whales you'll be disappointed. We did see one humpback, Split fin, but he was just lazily feeding in the channel, surfacing from time to time to blow a bit of spume but no tail action to speak of. We had to cross into American waters to follow him for a while. Whales have bad breath - when we travelled past where he had recently been, the smell was very unpleasant. The weather was perfect for a day on the water and we stopped off at a nature reserve on the way back and saw seals, sea lions, elephant seals fighting and flopping about on the rocks. BTW down wind of them is rather ripe too.
Burtchart Gardens (and their historic carousel ride,which some people couldn't keep off!!).
SNOW!!! Snow - and lots of it - clearly visible along the tops of the mountains in the ranges to the west of Victoria. These mountains are actually in the United States to the west of Victoria, probably the Mt Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest ranges. But it was snow!!!
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