sign near the entry
Cruises from Seattle to Alaska generally make a stop at Victoria on the way back to fulfill the required foreign port. Most of these are late evening stops from around 6 or 7 pm until Midnight. Quantum of the Seas was scheduled for a bit earlier stop at 5 pm. On previous stops in Victoria we either just went out and walked around town on our own or stayed on the ship, but on Quantum we had booked an excursion to Butchart Gardens. It was a windy, stormy day, but there was a Norwegian ship docked in Victoria when our ship passed by, circled round, and passed by again. A wave splashed over top of the pilot boat as it pulled up to the ship. The pilot made it onboard, but together with the captain decided not to take the ship into port. I had not realized prior that ships ever didn’t make it into Victoria. Quantum is bigger than most ships that go to Alaska, and considering all the things we didn’t do on our cruise it may be too big for that area. Just to make things confusing to people not from the area, Victoria is on Vancouver Island, but Vancouver, the other nearby Canadian cruise port is not. There is also a lesser-known city called Vancouver in Washington State – all named after Captain Vancouver who explored the pacific northwest in the 1790’s.
map of Butchart Gardens
Later we went to Butchart Gardens on our own, taking the Coho ferry across the Strait of Juan de Fuca from Port Angeles to Victoria. We found a hotel right across the street from the ferry dock so did not have to go far with luggage after walking onto the ferry. There are actually 3 hotels just across from the dock and quite a few others in the surrounding area. Victoria’s inner harbour where the ferry stops is right in the heart of the touristy part of town, unlike the cruise ship port which is at Ogden Point on the outskirts of the harbour (spelled the Canadian way).
boar fountain with foal and donkey statues
Butchart Gardens is quite a ways from town, but it is not hard to get there even if you are there without a car. Tour busses are an option, but they cost quite a lot more than the city bus and don’t have as much freedom on the times you can come and go. Taxis are also an option, but the price is quite high for them. The city bus is a good option. It runs about every half hour through a lot of the day. Later in the evening it goes to more like every 40, then 50 minutes. The bus schedule for the garden is somewhat seasonal reflecting the garden’s hours since it stays open later in the summer. There’s also a bus stop close to the nearby butterfly garden if someone should want to go there as well. The bus has a stop right in Butchart Gardens near the entrance. It is bus 75 that stops in the garden, but when the bus is running at times when the garden is closed it skips that stop. It’s a short walk from the bus stop to the entry gates. There’s a ticket booth where people can buy tickets and get maps of the garden. People with pre-purchased tickets can skip that line and go straight to the entry scanners. You can buy tickets at the Visitor’s center in Victoria or online.
sunken garden
In the garden there are pathways leading to a variety of different gardens. The oldest is the sunken garden, built in a former limestone quarry shortly after the mine shut down. The garden now covers 55 acres. It began through the ideas of Jennie Butchart, wife of the owner of the former mine. The gardens are still owned and operated by the family, descendants of the original owner. They no longer live on the premises though. The former estate house is now the dining room that serves afternoon tea in a portion of it and houses offices in the rest. Besides the dining room, food is also available at another restaurant, a coffee shop, and a gelateria so people can spend the day there without going hungry. Advance reservations are advised for afternoon tea, which can be made online.
fountain at the sunken garden
The sunken garden is the largest of all the gardens there. Most of it is on low ground since all the original rock was mined away, but there’s a lookout in the middle on a pillar of limestone that was not of sufficient quality for them to mine it. At the far end there’s a fountain, which changes if you watch it long enough. It gets taller and shorter and has sprays that twist around each other. When in season there are rhododendrons there among many other plants. A group of garden workers were replacing the flowers in one of the beds while we were there, something they do as needed all around the garden to keep it always looking nice.
even the trash cans have little gardens on top
All of the gardens have multiple flower beds. There are flowers everywhere. Even the trash cans have little gardens on top.
rose carousel
Not far from the sunken garden there’s an indoor carousel. It’s called the Rose Carousel, though it is not in the rose garden. There’s a small fee to ride the carousel. It has hand-carved animals, not all of which are horses. People can choose to ride all sorts of exotic animals on the carousel from big cats to ostriches, a camel, or even an orca among many others. The guy running it said the orca got the most attention though we did not see anyone ride it while we were there. The carousel is near to a pond with a fountain that said it was the fireworks viewing area.
wall lizard
We saw lots of little lizards in the garden. They are cute, but also a non-native invasive species called common wall lizards native to the sunnier regions of southern Europe. When a 60-s era roadside zoo closed down they turned a few lizards loose. Descendants of those lizards now number over half a million. Since these lizards eat bees they can be detrimental to anything requiring bees for pollination. Although some of the area’s animals will eat the lizards, they don’t catch enough of them to curb the population. The garden did have a lot of wild bees so at least the lizards haven’t eaten all of the bees.
dragon fountain
Near to each other on the map, but down separate pathways there’s a dragon fountain and a sturgeon fountain. As the names indicate, one has a dragon in it and the other several fish, though all of them are statues. There were some actual fish in a small pond in the show greenhouse near the entrance. The greenhouse is also home to some giant begonias and other flowers. People can look in through a viewing window, but not go inside.
rose in the rose garden
The rose garden is near the sturgeon fountain and the Dining Room Restaurant. It has many different types of roses, all with little signs saying the name of the rose, who that rose variety is attributed to, and the year it first came out.
the most memorable rose name sign, but unfortunately not in bloom so we didn’t see what Rosie the Riveter rose actually looked like
Not all of them bloom at the same time so only some of the plants had blooms on them. There were also other plants like delphiniums filling in space between roses in some of the gardens.
star pond
The Italian Garden is quite small, occupying a former tennis court behind the Dining Room Restaurant and next to the star pond, a large shallow star-shaped man-made pond.
bridge in the Japanese Garden
The Japanese Garden sits beyond the star pond and is the second biggest of the gardens. It has many pathways and pools winding through mostly shady areas. There’s a little rock garden and lots of interesting little details.
trees in the Japanese garden
On a hot sunny day the Japanese Garden is the place to be since it has a lot of shade.
stepping stones
It also has a pond with stepping stones.
boar scarer fountain
Other interesting features in the Japanese Garden include little bridges, archways, and a funny little bamboo fountain called a boar scarer where water flows into a bit of bamboo until it slaps down on a rock, then pops back up for another go. It does make a noise, but it’s hard to picture that actually scaring a boar since it would probably just get used to it.
cove with boat dock
The back side of the Japanese garden has a gate out to a little cove where people who come to the garden by boat can dock.
tiny teapot Christmas ornaments in the gift shop
Up near the entry area there’s a small waterwheel and a gift shop. There’s also a visitor center and the coffee shop. The gift shop has all sorts of garden themed items as well as ornaments and teacups. It also has some clothing items like hats, shirts, and socks. Quite an array of wall art is available there as well.
well at the rose garden
Although it’s not in town, Butchart Gardens is one of Victoria’s biggest attractions.
pond
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