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| The Butchart Gardens in full summer bloom! |
From our place in Sequim we could see Vancouver Island across the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Getting across the 22 mile strait was fairly simple thanks to the Black Ball Ferry from Port Angeles to Victoria. The ferry runs up to three times a day and the crossing time is approximately 90 minutes. There is plenty of parking near the ferry terminal in Port Angeles and the terminal in Victoria is in the small marina just across from the iconic Fairmont Hotel. It was an easy, affordable ($46 roundtrip when we went) and fun way to cross the 22-mile wide strait and spend the day in Canada.
Our plans for our day in Victoria were to roam around a bit and visit the world-famous Butchart Gardens. We hadn't made arrangements for transportation from the city to the gardens, We figured a taxi or Uber would be convenient. As it turned out, it was even easier. We were able to purchase transportation and admission to the gardens on the ferry. Even better, at the time we visited the exchange rate between the US dollar and the Canadian dollar was favorable to us. Everything we bought and did was at about a 25% discount on the Canadian dollar.
When we arrived in Victoria, we quickly cleared customs/passport control and were soon enjoying the city center. We had been to Victoria before and found it to be really enjoyable. This visit was no exception. We had some "roaming around" time before our bus to the gardens.
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| Victoria Government Building |
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| Rob and Pam with their new best friends, the Totem family. |
The 55-acre Butchart Gardens hosts over a million visitors annually. Our very informative bus driver shared a lot of great information on the garden as well as the city of Victoria on the 20-minute drive. Of course I've forgotten most of it by now, but I do remember him saying there are five seasons at the gardens; winter, spring, summer, fall and Christmas. We were visiting in August, so it was "summer". The gardens were lush green and in full bloom! He said every season is great, but that his personal favorite was the Christmas season.
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| Just a few of the pictures Beth took during our visit to Butchart Gardens. Everywhere you looked was a "Kodak Moment"! |
Thankfully not all the one million plus annual visitors decided to show up on the day we were there. However, it was quite crowded on a nice summer day. Everyone moves at a different pace, so we decided to enjoy the gardens at our leisure. We went one way, Rob and Pam headed another direction and we had a designated meeting time and place. which gave us time to catch the bus back to the city center, enjoy a bit more roaming around and get a bite to eat before heading back to the ferry for the late afternoon/early evening crossing back to Port Angeles. We were quickly learning not only to appreciate our rental home in Sequim, but to also appreciate how central of a location it was to explore the Olympic Peninsula and beyond.
After eight really nice days together we headed out from Sequim and back to the Seattle airport. Rob and Pam headed back to Texas while we headed back north of the border to Vancouver. Another adventure and a rendovous with some family members awaited!
