DAY-14 Victoria for Gardens & Tea and A High Strung Bridge Adventure

Day-14: Wednesday, September 16, 2015

Starting Location: Fairmont Pacific Rim Hotel, Vancouver, BC
Interim Location: Victoria Island, BC

Ending Location: Fairmont Pacific Rim Hotel, Vancouver, BC

Breakfast, free or not free, that is the question. Well actually nothing is free but it looks like today's morning meal was "included".

For six of us (Jan, Pete, Pat, Jack, Sheila and me) it was Victoria day. Around 8 AM we walked to the seaplane terminal (5 minutes) where we checked in, received our itinerary with vouchers and were flying by 8:45 or so. This morning's flight from Vancouver to Victoria was aboard a single engine, single pilot DeHavilland DHC-III Otter; a fine aircraft in its day but as noted by Pete, the last Otter was built in the 1967, yep that's right older than any of our children!

The flight took about 40 minutes never exceeding 2,000 feet in altitude in our Puget Sound and Salish Sea crossing. We arrived around 9:30 and headed to the Empress Hotel for our tour instructions and transportation.

Anybody ever notice how one of us just can't keep her hands off a guy in a sailor's suit? We could hold a "caption" contest for this picture.

He says, "Did I tell you about the time I ..."

Our tour company for Victoria was CVS tours (apparently not related to the pharmacy). Everything was well arranged and soon we were on our way to Butchart Gardens. Along the way we stopped for an hour at the Butterfly Gardens, arriving at Butchart around 1 PM.


At the Butterfly Gardens there were a wide variety of butterflies, some colorful tropical tree frogs, several birds and reportedly a lizard wandering undetected through the mini rain forest. Oh and let's not forget the tortoise or was that a butterfly camouflaged as a tortoise?

It should be noted that the "elusive Blue Butterfly" from Australia either has a look alike in Canada or perhaps if one stretches the imagination, flew over the Pacific and met us for a second time, this time in Victoria; okay probably it's a different butterfly after all how could a meager insect travel thousands of miles and survive for so many years?

The "Illusive Blue Butterfly"

We reboarded our tour bus and arrived at Butchart Gardens around 12:45, plenty of time to walk through the gardens for about two hours. The setting for the gardens is an old rock quarry, but now a series of gardens including roses, dahlias, well I can't even name the flowers; let it be said that even with fall nearly upon us the blooms were amazing and the specialty areas such as the "sunken garden", the Japanese Garden and even the Italian Garden were well manicured and picture perfect. The area even has something for the kids, a merry-go-round similar to others around the world but with an unusual set of animals, e.g. polar bear, grizzly eating a salmon, whale, etc.

"And the name of this rose is _____"

As added pleasure of the garden there was the ice cream shop. Seems that ice cream has been lacking in my diet, so a fix we had, salted caramel for Sheila and chocolate for me.

Around 3 PM we boarded our bus and were back in the city of Victoria by 1545. We did a little shopping and proceeded to the Empress Hotel for tea, yes sports fans I said tea.

Tea (and a Hendricks G&T, with emphasis on the "T") was served with sandwiches, scones, cookies, etc. and fruit. Other than a bit of confusion as to whether the cucumber would be in the G&T or as the filling in a sandwich, all was well, the treats were eaten though not all as a few remained and were carefully boxed for transport back to Vancouver for Diane and Greg (would that be sufficient to entitle them to a share of the cost for tea?)

After tea it was time to fly back to Vancouver. On the walk over to the seaplane port Pete and I drooled over several mega-yachts and an amazing restored old tugboat.

Our flight to Vancouver was around 6:20 and we were back at the hotel by 7:15; it would have been sooner but we waited for Jack's bag to be taken off the seaplane; oh yea, Jack had no bag, okay we were ready to go.

Vancouver Airport

Speaking of Diane and Greg, after filming our departure this morning and having already been to Victoria, they stayed behind and did other things, they ventured across a high strung suspension foot bridge (300 feet above the valley below), climbed through the trees on tree house rope bridges and platforms, etc. Sounds as if they were basically play acting the roles of Swiss Family Robinson or maybe even Tarzan and Jane swinging through the urban jungle of Vancouver.

We all met back up in the hotel lobby bar around 7 and had a few more high priced drinks and solved a few more of the world's problems.

We said our good byes to Jan and Pete as it was unlikely that we would be up and out by 0700 tomorrow to see them off.

With that the night ended and we prepared for reentry into the good ole USA.