Saturday, August 22, 2009

2009-8-22 Victoria, BC

Saturday morning we woke up early to the ship really rocking and rolling. It was rather interesting watching the crew and passengers trying to move about the boat. Apparently higher then expected surf came our way and things were thrown around the ship. The stores were closed for most of the day while they cleaned up the mess. Dishes in the buffet restaurant were thrown onto the floor, so when we got there they were handing them out of big tubs. Potted plants were toppled and rolling around. Even the pool areas (outside and in the spa) were emptied due to the water in them being sloshed out. The pools remained closed the rest of the trip. But by afternoon the surf subsided and the ship was back to being calm.
Saturday was also Victoria, B.C day. Greater Victoria is the 15th largest metropolitan in Canada with a population of over 330,000. It reminds me of a little english town. We were only here from 6pm-11:30pm. Ken took off on the shuttle and walked around the downtown area by himself. David and Jane walked around the area from the ship. Carolyn and Joe hung out at the ship, again. Carol and I did the ship excursion to Butchard's Gardens.
Butchard's Gardens is a National Historic Site of Canada, but still privately owned by family descendants. It has 55 acres of beautifully landscaped gardens. We didn't have much daylight hours there, but it is also lit up at night. We did race around the whole park quickly trying to see as much as we could before dark. It's as beautiful as I remembered. I have been there before, but am a sucker for gardens. Here is the famous sunken garden.
It was even beautiful at night. Here is the entrance to the Japanese Gardens.
Included in this tour was also a fireworks show at the gardens. It was a little odd compared to our US fireworks shows, but still interesting. Considering how large the crowd was at the gardens, it cleared out pretty quickly after the fireworks.
Here we were greeted by this statue as we got back to our ship.
So glad Carol was along to go to the garden with me.

No comments:

Post a Comment