Butchart Gardens and Victoria

Victoria

The first part of the trip to Victoria was back along the road to Parksville.  Once we reached the North Coast, we joined the main highway.  The Canadians do like traffic lights - every junction (and there were a lot of them) onto the highway had traffic lights.  It felt like slower progress than the twisty single-carriageway mountain roads!

Butchart was one of the attractions we most wanted to see.  We decided to stop there en-route to our hotel.  It added well over an hour to the day`s driving, but it meant the next day was car free.

The gardens felt more like a show garden than a botanic garden, with a lot of emphasis on landscaping.

The gardens felt more like a show garden rather than a botanic garden., with a lot of emphasis on displays.

It was a pleasant couple of hours but very busy.

We did have probably the best hotel of the holiday.  I was entertained for ages watching the seaplanes landing and taking off, and the traffic on the water.

And we had a great view over Fisherman's Wharf.

After so many nights in small towns, it was a shock to see so many lights at night.

The most impressive building in Victoria: or the one that was most like old European buildings, even though it was only around 140 years old.

It looked glorious at night.

And during the day

The back of the building was equally impressive.

There was no issue going into the building, we just needed to go through a security scan.  

Inside, there were some great reflections from the windows the floor was so highly polished.

The parliament chamber.

The view up into the dome.

I did like that most of the centre of Victoria was low-rise, with a lot of "old" buildings, but it was difficult to get many decent images with the amount of traffic and street furniture.  

Not surprisingly the Fairmont Hotel was one of the most impressive buildings. 

Inside aswell.

As part of the trip we were booked onto a whale watching tour.  RHIBs are great for mobility but bounce, a lot!.  I have a lot of photos of sea and sky.

It was a great tour, 2 Orcas, 4 humpback whales and a totally chilled sea otter.

When we came back into the harbour, we got a good view of our hotel, we were on the fifth floor.