victoria, british columbia 2011: the victoria butterfly gardens, the butchart gardens, + fisherman's wharf

On Thursday, we rented a car and drove up to The Butchart Gardens. On the way, we stopped at the Victoria Butterfly Gardens.

The Victoria Butterfly Gardens is a 12,000 square foot enclosure full of 3,000 butterflies. It is fun to buy the butterfly identification chart when you come in, and then misidentify butterflies for about an hour. :) We recognized the Blue Morphos, but that's about it.  

It's really cool, how much is going on inside that space. Very enjoyable.

However, I should warn you in case you care about such things: your hair will get frizzy from the humidity.

This Blue Morpho from South America very obligingly landed on a the bench next to me.

I hope what you notice most about these next two photos is that I have a butterfly on my head. I hope what you notice least about these next two photos is the lovely gray stripe in my hair, and the aforementioned frizziness. Yeesh.

 

Then we drove down the road a bit more to The Butchart Gardens. If Francis Rattenbury's legacy of beautiful buildings in Victoria is testimony to what one man can do to make a big difference somewhere, The Butchart Gardens is testimony to what one woman can do to make a big difference somewhere.

Jennie Butchart's husband made cement, and when he used up all the limestone in the quarry near their home in 1908, Jennie decided to turn the quarry into a sunken garden. 

That big chimney in the background is from an old kiln, and is all that remains of the cement factory.

Jennie didn't just point her finger and tell other people what to do. She worked hard herself. For instance, she hung in a boson's chair to plant ivy in the barren rock walls of the quarry.

I don't think you'd catch me dead hanging off a rock wall in a boson's chair. (Maybe dead.)

Later, Jennie added a Japanese Garden, an Italian Garden, and a Rose Garden to their home. (She got rid of their tennis court to put in the Italian Garden.) By the 1920s, fifty thousand people a year were coming to see Jennie's gardens. 

The Butcharts' grandson, Ian Ross, designed this spectacular fountain and had it installed in this smaller quarry in 1964, to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Butchart Gardens.

Nowadays, close to one million people a year visit the Butchart Gardens, which is about the same number of bedding plants used there. Fifty-five acres of the Gardens are available to the public, with even more "off stage". The suggested route (shown with little pink arrows) on the map makes for a very pleasant walk, and we recommend it.

 

I love rose names. :) 

After lunch, we left Butchart Gardens and headed back south to our hotel.

Fisherman's Wharf (which was a short walk from our hotel) is a marina with a bunch of floating cabins around it. If the weather is nice, it's worth a visit to sit outside and eat fish and chips from Barb's, and to feed the harbour seals who come up to the dock looking for handouts. You also have a nice view of float planes taking off and landing, and of cute little water taxis zooming back and forth to the Inner Harbour.

Do you see the red-haired woman sitting in a chair on the balcony? It's a mannequin. Kind of creepy. :) I'm guessing she's to keep the birds away.

Here comes our hungry, pig-nosed friend.

Here's Claire buying six more herring with her own spending money. She would have fed this harbour seal all day if we'd let her.

But we didn't let her, because we needed to get some food of our own.