BC or Bust

Part of the "way back when" of our lives - living on a sailboat in South Florida - (as opposed to the "way way back when" of our lives as work-away slaves in North Texas) included working with people who passed on to us their enjoyable experiences in the waters of the Pacific Northwest, including the San Juan Islands and Vancouver Island. We've missed our chance to do this by boat, but we've wanted to make sure we take in as much of the area as we can by car and on foot.

A visit to Victoria, British Columbia was a must. This picturesque city on the southern tip of Vancouver Island is the provincial capitol of British Columbia. These Canadians have the right idea - isolating their government on an island reachable only by ferry. But, alas, it apparently doesn't work better than having them right in our midst. Whoops - been trying to stay out of politics in this blog.

Victoria is very pretty - a beautiful harbor and waterfront, where we arrived by passenger ferry from Port Angeles, WA. Our 90-minute passage was marked by two pods of orcas that crossed our bow - our captain said nearly 40 whales. (He also pointed out the small excursion boat nearby filled with $100/seat whale watchers - lucky us!)

The city has much history with it's 100 year old government buildings and luxury hotels. It's every bit a modern city with broad highways and condos and shopping centers, but we also passed areas where apartment renters lease small plots of ground so they can plant and maintain their own flower garden or vegetable garden - some people can't seem to stay away from yard work.



The ultimate example of this "mania" is the Butchart Gardens - the largest tourist draw on the island, and deservedly so. Over 100 years ago, the wife of the owner of a huge mined-out limestone quarry began beautifying the empty pit by planting a garden that over the years expanded to cover 54 acres and employ hundreds of fulltime gardners and horticulturists to create the incredible displays of trees and flowers and fountains and satuary, and hundreds of part-time college students to help maintain the grounds during the summer months.




It was an overcast and rainy day on our visit (a common enough occurrence that they have a huge supply of umbrellas available for the thousands of daily patrons.) But the weather took nothing away from the beauty of the sunken gardens or the Japanese garden or the rose garden or the ... though there was less navel contemplation than there might have on a sunny day.