they had a few canes available and lent me one, as I forgot my monopole, which has worked out well as a bit of stabilization for me…
it is a lovely space and the highlight for me was sitting under a tree with my daughter while a hummingbird visited and sat in the tree above us… my daughter took both of the above pictures…
found a few ponds with turtles and goldfish…
I was also impressed with the methods they used to support the trees…
amazing what a group of volunteers can accomplish…
we saw giant trees, flower beds filled with flowers, roses, numerous ponds and creeks, and lots and lots of ducks…
and, the moss lady… once we found her, I was reminded of the Earth Goddess, which we visited in Atlanta in 2016… at that time I slipped under the fence and got a close up with her…
did the same thing with the moss lady, although I did not touch her…
from the bus we saw the mile zero monument, and the Terry Fox memorial…
clearly, you could spend days wandering through this park😊…
we decided to take the hop on, hop off bus and to do the whole loop to see what we might want to do the next time we took it…
the tour started at the Empress, so while we waited to board we visited the gardens there… we stepped inside the lobby to admire the beautiful arrangements and then wandered the lawns and gardens…
we found lovely flower beds and a few giant old trees…
we decided that the next day we would visit Chinatown and Beacon Hill Park…
after we’d been around once we walked to the Parkside Hotel where we saw the koi and had a snack beside the pond…
we went back to one of the stops and hopped on, and hopped off, just a few blocks from our hotel… very handy…
the next day, after I’d put on just about all the clothes I’d brought because I’d been cold the day before, lol, we caught the bus by our hotel and hopped off at Beacon Hill Park… it is very large…
we hopped on and hopped off again at the Empress and walked up a street to check out the shops… after lunch we walked to see Trounce Alley and Fan Tan Alley, which is only 3 feet wide!!! after buying a few treats, we caught the bus and hopped off at the stop which was close to our hotel;-)…
the hop on, hop off bus was worth every penny as we used it from around 1 pm the first day until around 5 pm on the second day…
we went to the Parkside Hotel to visit the koi pond, which I had seen on an Instagram post… I was not disappointed…
as you walked up to the hotel there were a number of outdoor ponds with goldfish and water lilies in them…
inside you walked across the koi pond on the way to the front desk… part of the hotel was a cafe, that opened onto the street so that the neighbourhood could stop by for goodies…
I had hummus and some lovely bread to enjoy as I sat beside the pond…
every day at a certain time, they divide the food for the fish into containers, which the hotel guests can take and feed them…
a quiet and serene place for a break from all the busyness of the city😊…
these gardens seemed much more relaxed than the others we’d been to and the first few spots we walked through weren’t very exciting…
but then we found the Japanese Garden which had a creek flowing through it with light, shady areas, and ponds… it was quite large and was lovely with little surprises along the way, such as the sleeping mermaid…
the Bonsai Garden had a small building to rest in and was a lovely serene place…
it had close to twenty trees that ranged in age from a few years old to over 150…
it was a quiet place to stop for a few minutes before continuing on through the Japanese Garden area…
the first thing you see is an area focussed on stick bugs and poisonous frogs… there were a lot…
then we moved into the Butterfly area… just as we arrived a keeper was letting a box of maybe 50 butterflies out… there were all types inside and one landed on my daughter and climbed up her, lol… another one, a cracker (one of my favourites) landed on the front of a man who was beside us… it stayed on him the entire time he walked through the garden…
besides butterflies, there were a few types of fish, a variety of turtles and tortoises, a flamingo, many parrots and other birds… part of their mission is to take in injured creatures…
they also have some butterflies in all their stages… from eggs, to caterpillars, to the butterflies… that was exciting to see…
the space is very large and it can be difficult to spot the butterflies, although there seem to be more in the front area… but many types and also different ways to display them…
when we first arrived at the Butchart Gardens we went to book our High Tea at the restaurant… unfortunately they weren’t open yet, but my daughter convinced them to add us to the reservation list…
when we arrived at the designated time, we were seated outdoors, overlooking the large green open area…
they had blankets at each table, which was great as it was a little cool…
because of allergies we ended up with a tower each…
one of the little cakes on my tower had jelly on the top… it became the favourite for a wasp that really enjoyed the jelly…
everything was delicious… I needed my fork to hold up many of the sandwiches, lol…
but I didn’t eat the jelly part, lol… and it was sweet that they included a happy birthday chocolate on my cupcake 😊…
the staff were excellent and we had such a fun time… first High Tea of the trip…
