Victoria, B.C.
We had a fantastic five days with my brother Kevin & his wife Heidi when they came to stay with us. It was his first time to the island and she had been here for a very brief visit years ago. They walked on the ferry as passengers, as they'd left their parked car in Port Angeles (in a paid lot). As soon as we picked them up we headed to our local neighborhood pub where we ate and made plans!
Our first day we headed to Butchart Gardens (as we had held off on doing this since we wanted to do it together). Did you know that they don't use any volunteers? Kevin asked and was told everyone is paid and often remain employed for years and years. That's pretty incredible for a garden that is 55 acres and has over 900 varieties of bedding plants! It's also 118 years old, created by Jennie Butchart, and still privately owned and operated by the family. Starting in 1912, she transformed her backyard, which was a former limestone quarry, into this amazing garden. It's truly an eye popping place and you can't really capture the splendor (at least I can't) on camera. Everywhere you walk there are endless gorgeous things to look at.
I was astonished when we got to the Dahlia area as it just had the MOST incredible flowers I'd ever seen! I mean look at these colors and shapes!!!!
After soaking that up we took them to Category 12 brewery for some yummy food and their super cool artwork (sorry we were hungry and scarfed the food before I took pictures).
One day we had fun renting Giant Explore e-bikes from Cycle CB and riding the Seaside Loop which took us through forests, along waterways and the coast. We had so much fun, and ended up doing about 40 kilometers, stopping whenever we wanted to soak up a view, get a drink or eat. It was our first time renting this type of bike and lemme just say it was pretty cool to have that little peddle assist on a ride this long.
Of course we regularly wandered all over the harbor area soaking everything up and stopping whenever we saw something that interested us (often this included food and beer). We had fun riding one of the adorable small yellow water taxis which operate at different locations. They really are the cutest things ever to see all over the harbor. One day we came home to find a beautiful Doe resting in our backyard.
We went kayaking with the tour company we had used before (Kelp Reef Adventures) and got to see seals/pups and other wildlife. A cool thing this company does is start you off on a floating dock so you never even get your feet wet! You climb into the kayak and then they push you off into the water and off you go!
We packed in as much as we could before they headed back on the ferry.
August 2022
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