Vancouver Island: Butchart Gardens

After Delle and I left the Butterfly Gardens, we headed down the road to the famous Butchart Gardens. We realised at this point that we hadn't budgeted our time very well, so we only had about 2 hours to see the 55-acre gardens before heading to our dinner destination!



Before starting our exploration of the gardens, we had a quick lunch in a cafe at the entrance. There I had the most disgusting nachos ever - a plastic container of corn chips squirted with fake orange cheese (from a bottle!) and an adjacent compartment of runny salsa. Canada's orange cheese had been freaking Delle out throughout her visit, but this stuff took the cake! After this amusing diversion, we had just enough time for a quick tour of the various sections that make up the Butchart Gardens.



The earliest garden was planted just over 100 years ago, and the couple who started it all (the Butcharts) began welcoming visitors to their estate in the 1920s. The Butchart Gardens change for each of the "five seasons" - spring, summer, fall, winter and Christmas. So this is the summer offering!

The Sunken Garden (built in an old quarry)...









Totem poles...















The Rose Garden...
















The Japanese Garden...























A window in the hedge, looking out at Butchart Cove (it was impossible to capture the awesomeness of this hedge window on camera!)...







The Star Pond, Italian Garden, and enjoying some gelato...







A replica of Florence's famous pig statue... click here to see the blog post from when we saw the real one!







And that was the Butchart Gardens! They really were spectacular and well worth a visit. But here's our advice to future visitors:

1) Budget more than 2 hours. 3-4 hours would probably be ideal.
2) Don't order the nachos.

That evening we had organised to stay the night in Parksville with Mel H. Mel had organised supper on the beach with Marina (a new face for me, but Delle had met her in Oz) and Lorne and Michelle and kids (Lorne's an Aussie). Due to a combination of factors, Delle and I ended up being quite a bit late to this appointment...

The factors included: Tommy (the GPS) trying to direct us onto a ferry as part of the "fastest route" option (we were practically in the ferry queue before we realised!), having to drive south to get around Saanich Inlet (due to not taking the ferry) before we could head north to Parksville, the shocking peak hour traffic on single-lane-each-way back roads, and stop-start traffic on the motorway near Victoria.

Thankfully the others weren't too annoyed about enjoying a lovely evening at the beach while they waited for us! Here's a pic of the crew at dinner - minus Michelle and kids, who were off playing by the time I got my camera out...


L-R: Mel, Lorne, Marina, Delle.



It was a beautiful evening, and we had fun staying at Mel's that night too. The next day we set off south again to explore BC's capital, Victoria. Stay tuned!

Vancouver Island: Butterfly Gardens

On Friday, June 26th, Delle and I set off on an overnight trip see a few sights on Vancouver Island. Here are some photos from the picturesque 1.5-hour ferry ride from Tsawwassen to Swartz Bay...







Our first destination was the Victoria Butterfly Gardens (which are not actually in Victoria - they are on the same road as the Butchart Gardens, about half an hour from Victoria).





The Butterfly Gardens aren't huge, but they are well worth a visit - especially if you either love butterflies or enjoy having very photogenic subjects to photograph close-up! We ended up spending a few hours there, which was not very well thought out given that it left us LESS time to see the 55-acre Butchart Gardens (our next destination) than we had taken at the 0.27-acre Butterfly Gardens!!









Here are some of my favourite butterfly shots (more in the corresponding Picasa album)...

















And my favourite butterfly...





The most elusive butterfly was a large blue-winged one. It's wings were brown with four big "eyes" on the outside, but on the inside they were a brilliant shade of blue. There were plenty of them flying around, but the moment they landed they would close their wings, so we (and others) spent ages with our cameras trained on their stubbornly-closed wings, waiting for the occasional split-second wing-flap they would teasingly engage in!

Following are the best photos I managed to get of them: the outside of one's wings, blue blurs near Delle's dress, a few seconds of a rare open-wing display by one up near the roof, and a patience-rewarding snap of a wing-flap while one was fighting with a moth in a citrus feeder (the moth is in the foreground and looks similar to the outside of the blue butterfly's wings, except it only has one main "eye")...









Here's some of the other wildlife in the gardens...















The other fascinating thing at the gardens was the display case of chrysalides (plural form of chrysalis - I checked!). By the end of our visit, one or two butterflies had emerged. I just loved how intricate the different types of crysalis were - nature is incredible!!







And that was the Victoria Butterfly Gardens - recommended! :)