Our last breakfast at the B & B was a blueberry dish that resembled a cross between the texture of a quiche and a fluffy pancake. It was accompanied by Canadian bacon, banana bread, fruit and yogurt parfait, and orange slices. As usual our coffee and tea were served in china cups that matched the rest of the serving pieces.
We bid goodbye to our hosts and their dog Bandit (who is really cute and friendly) and headed for the ferry to cross over to Vancouver Island. The ferry is massive – 6 decks, room for hundreds of cars, luxury seating in several levels of observation areas, and huge windows to watch all of the scenery go by.
Jim enjoyed climbing to the various decks to take pictures of our ferry trip. The loading and unloading of cars was done so efficiently without any wasted time.
After exiting the ferry we stopped at the tourist information center and found some interesting information about a number of gardens in and near Victoria that are open to the public. Since we would be passing one of them on our way into Victoria we decided to stop there.On the way to the gardens we stopped to take a picture of a country church that had a sign in front that said “Thou shall not park”, a nice way to manage parking.
We stopped in Sidney to grab sandwiches at two little holes-in-the-wall. Jim, who usually avoids beef, chose freshly sliced roast beef for his “bunwich” and Ardith, who loves her beef, selected a chicken bacon club that had a large piece of freshly sliced chicken breast in it. These were really great sandwiches. Jim also picked up some Dutch candy called Schoolkrit (school chalk) that had a taste similar to Good and Plenty, but were softer and better. They did look like little pieces of chalk.
The Butchart Gardens were constructed over 100 years ago. Mr. Butchart had a very successful cement company, and Mrs. Butchart created a series of formal gardens using the space from the worked-out limestone quarry which had supplied his business. The gardens cover 55 acres and include a sunken garden, rose garden, Japanese garden, star pond, fountains, Italian garden and a Mediterranean garden.
These gardens are all connected with pathways that are lined with banks of plants, shrubs and trees in wonderful color combinations. Everywhere you looked there was another photo opportunity that just couldn’t be missed.
It is a wonder that we ever got out of the gardens with so much to see. We stopped in the Italian gardens to enjoy a cone with gelato in it.
Two women about our age or a wee bit older decided to ride the carousel. One had a problem mounting her beast. The attendant pushed the carousel backward until her mount was at its lowest point.
At the entrance to the garden, we were given a brochure organized by color to help identify the plants in the garden. Not everything we saw was in it. They also had a plant identification area with fresh cut blossoms in vials and a woman who knew her plants well who had a big book with pictures to help with identification. She did a great job with queries like “it was peachy – yellow and sort of drooping”.We headed into Victoria to check into the Ramada Victoria which will be our home for the next three nights. One of the first things we did when we arrived was to turn on our laptop so we could make a Skype phone call before it was too late on the East coast. It took a while, but we determined that there was no signal in our room and needed to move to another. The other wasn’t as nice as the first – no balcony – but was otherwise fine and the internet worked well. We drove further into town looking for a place to eat dinner. Parking was a challenge and so was finding a place that both of us agreed on. We finally ate in Ali Babba’s Pizza and each enjoyed a very large slice of pizza. The toppings were both under and over the cheese, and they were quite tasty. We watched a bit of the hockey game and saw the Canucks lose again – now it’s 2 games to 2.
We are now roughly 25% through our journey, but it doesn’t seem that we’ve been away terribly long.
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