Driving from Campbell River to Victoria is a pretty straight shot down a major highway. Nothing eventful should happen. We're happily tooling down the road when this huge black cloud appears in the middle of the highway. Then splat! It was a huge swarm of thousands of yellow jackets, several hundred of which met their maker on our windshield! Couldn't even see out of the window. Had to pull over on the shoulder. Rick keeps wondering about the bikers that passed us a bit ago!
Make it to Victoria safely and settle in at Ft. Victoria RV Park (fortvictori.ca) where we have reservations for the next few days. Really dislike it, but it's the closest place to town, so we're here.
Butchart Gardens (butchartgardens.com), just outside of town, is a world-reknowned 55 acre privately owned garden created by the namesake family over 100 years ago. Having been there many years ago, I can't wait to get back....and we find that on Saturday nights they have fireworks....we vow we will make ourselves make it to the 10:15 pm show. And boy are we glad we did!
We arrive at the Gardens for the "golden hour"... when the light best hits landscape. The first area we visit is the "Sunken Garden" created by Mrs. Butchart out of an abandoned quarry on their property. (BTW, Mr. Butchart made his fortune in cement; hence the abandoned quarry) Stunningly beautiful.
The fountain, except for size, rivals the Bellagio's in Las Vegas. They even have the same manuevers.
As the sun goes down, the lights come up....the sunken garden is even more beautiful than earlier.
Making our way to the Rose Garden, we encounter beds like this begonia display every step of the way.
The Rose Garden puts me on scenic overload....it's almost too much to take in.
The Japanese Garden, where this whole big project began, is pretty, but there are so many people here, it's not serence like I'm sure it's meant to be. A far off corner, is a bit more quiet and lovely. Boat tours are offered here during the day.
The dining room that looks quite pretty, is fully booked, so we settle for their mid-tier cafeteria style option. The food is abysmal. Better choice would be to bring a picnic and eat on the lovely Italian Garden lawn.
We had positioned our chairs for the fireworks when we first arrived, so we had time to re-visit all the gardens in their night illumination mode. Quite pretty and we appreciated it much more since most others had cleared the gardens and were jockeying for fireworks views.
Cannot even begin to describe how incredible the fireworks were.....kind of a Busby Berkeley take on the pyrotechnics. Truly the best either one of us had ever seen. It was a combination of gorgeous, but rather typical sky works with beautifully choreographed displays in the lake set to an amazing score. Thousands of people were dead silent until they burst into cheers after each scene.
We were literally left breathless. And we figured it served as our July 4th celebration because it's July 3 at 10:15 pm PDT which translates to 1:15 a.m (July 4) on the east coast!
We are so glad we really forced ourselves to do this after a tiring travel day. The only thing I would do differently again is pop for a season pass which is double a one day admission. That way I think the gardens could be enjoyed without the throngs of people and the fireworks are an occasion all of their own.
No comments:
Post a Comment