Ireland day 0970. Saturday 25 May 2024- Victoria 3

Today’s summary	Drove up to the Butchart Gardens to do the tourist trail, then had a look at Beaver Lake on the way back. Dinner at Moxies in the evening.
Today’s weather	Cool and overcast but mostly dry. Moderate westerly wind. Appx 13c

Today’s overview location (The green mark shows the location of our route)		Close-up location (The orange line shows where we walked) (Click button below to download GPX of today’s walk as recorded, or see interactive map at bottom with elevations corrected): Butchart Gardens

Commentary

(Summary blog only. Last full blog was Day 0368).

Yesterday we had a touristy day, which I said was rare for us. Well – today we had another, which it made it a rarity squared.

We were up reasonably early this morning and, once we had had our obligatory cup of tea in bed, we decided to head off and do some garden visiting.

The most famous gardens in Victoria – indeed possibly even in the whole of Canada – are the Butchart Gardens, which are about 30 minutes drive from here, due north up Highway 17. These gardens were made in the remains of an old limestone quarry about 120 years ago and I remembered from a visit many years ago that they were definitely worth a look.

So we spent most of the day looking round the gardens which were indeed stunning. Especially at this time of year when huge banks of azaleas and rhododendrons were in full bloom. It was very busy – though extremely well organised – and the hordes of visitors did prove to be a bit of a distraction. Although at times the people-watching was almost as interesting at the plant-spotting.

We treated ourselves to an early lunch in the garden café and spent a good couple of hours looking round the gardens themselves. Once we had exhausted the garden experience, we drove a short way back towards Victoria to have a quick look at the Elk and Beaver lake area. Our son is doing a race here tomorrow and we wanted to check out the spectator facilities.

From there we drove back to the hotel, got quickly changed, and met up with family and friends at Moxie’s restaurant for dinner. Another excellent meal, as they all seem to be in British Columbia.

I’m going to call it a day now, as we have a very early start to catch the start of the race tomorrow, and I think we do need to try and get at least a couple of hours sleep!

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


At the garden entrance	*American Robin (Turdus migratorius) on the lookout for nice tasty worms*

Park overview map	The Ross Fountain – designed by one Vic Dawson, no less

Val tried on a hat…	…and so did I. I have to say I think Val carried it off better than I did

The Sunken Garden – the main part of the former quarry