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Why are we not sleeping???

Its a question that is starting to bother us both as we don't seem to be able to sleep in much after 07:00! So wide awake on a Saturday morning we headed down to the hotels coffee bar only to find that it was full so it was out onto the street and a short walk downtown to a friendly Starbucks. Over a latte and breakfast we planned out the day in front of us with the first stop being The Butchart Garden listed as a historic site of Canada for over 100 years. Now we are not normally garden type people, not that we dont like them or anything like that but normally the thought of walking round gardens does not full us with joy.

We headed out in the car for the thirty minute drive out to

the north end of the south tip of the island. The gardens themselves covered some 55 acres and how they came in to being is actually quite remarkable. The Butchart family were owners of The British Columbia Cement Company and this is where they mined the mineral to manufacture Portland Cement.

Jennie Butchart took it upon herself to come up with a plan to beautify the quarries that were left over following all the blasting and digging from the quarries. Now this family must have had a serious amount of money as what they did is truly quite remarkable. They took this 55 acres and divided it up into six areas such as the sunken garden or the Japanese garden etc and went to work back in the very early 1900's.

The story itself to us was far more intriguing than the gardens. Not that they were not stunning because they were incredible and like all of Vancouver Island that we have seen so far they were absolutely immaculate.

The family still own and manage them today now hosting grand firework displays and concerts in the grounds as well.

Leaving the gardens behind us we headed down to the coast and a place called Oak Bay and Willow Beach. It was another glorious day here in BC and the journey down to the coast was a real pleasure. Its hard to explain but all the grass verges and all the hedges that you pass in the front of peoples houses are immaculately kept here. Its almost like the island has its own team of Alan Titchmarch's's that run around at night and deliver the perfect garden maintenance programme.

We arrived at the beach which gave fantastic vistas of snow capped mountains to the distance. Small boats filled the waters in front of the driftwood filled sands. The beach seemed to be full of discarded logs that has come in on the tide now all faded and white. With the amount of logging that must go on in the vicinity its no surprise that a few must escape.

We walked along the narrow promenade up to a small cafe that even had sausage rolls on the menu, the first time we have ever seen anything like that outside of the UK. We did not stop as we had already made other plans. Like the rest Vancouver Island that we had seen so far this felt like a really safe lovely area to be in and it felt scrubbed clean, unnaturally so in some ways.

It was back to our Toyota and we headed off around the coastal scenic route back to Victoria itself. Along the way we passed many a driftwood filled beach and some amazing houses. Think Roedean Crescent and you will be in the right place. The houses over here all seem so big compared to the majority of plots in the UK and having a nose in a local property paper they are not that cheap either. Certainly nowhere near as expensive as the UK for something similar but not cheap by anyones standards.

We drove all the way along the coast until we reached the outskirts of Victoria and Fisherman's Wharf where we had walked to the other day. Now we had promised ourselves lunch here so we parked the car and with much anticipation headed down onto the avenues of floating pontoons and the fish restaurants. Unfortunately what we had both eyed up the other day was not available, we had both fallen in love with the sound of Thai red curry mussels but the mussels were not available so we had to resort to Halibut and chips. It was yummy but not what we had wanted. Still we are not moaning as the setting was outstanding and the food great as well, you cant have it all.

Next stop it was back to the hotel, drop off the car and head into town. We had already managed to full up our camera SD card after only two weeks so we were in need of another. Shopping complete we headed up to the other end of Victoria Harbour and crossed the bridge into West Victoria. To be honest this area is very residential so there was nothing of great interest to see here but you do get amazing views back into the city and you also get to realise just how busy this harbour is.

Planes, boats, Kayaks, amphibious cars, ferries, you name it they all share this harbour all at the same time and the waterways are busy yet somehow non chaotic.

Having walked around the sea walls we headed back to the hotel to chill for a while. We had been walking for the best part of six hours now and we needed a little break (we must be getting older since the world trip!??!?).

Refreshed and revived we headed out downtown once more to a lovely pizza restaurant followed by a trip to Government Street and a huge Irish Bar that had live music. We sat down to enjoy our first ever bottle of Canadian (B.C. Produced) red cabernet merlot and it went down a treat. It was shame about the local liquor and state taxes that came with it but the wine was good.

Back at the hotel is was more chill time, well write blog time and hope that we actually found a way to sleep in.

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