Pac NW Vacation - Day 7

For the next leg of our trip we headed even farther north into Victoria British Columbia. We took the earliest ferry out and stayed overnight at the Chateau Victoria Hotel and Suites. The hotel was beautiful, the beds were comfortable and it was just a short walk to the downtown area. Unfortunately the weather wasn't quite as beautiful so we opted to do indoor activities. One of the attractions that sounded fun to me was the Victoria Butterfly Gardens. They are situated outside of town so we needed to take some form of transportation to get there. The concierge at our hotel suggested the bus since it was cheaper than taking a taxi. Eventually we got there but what should have been a 25 minute trip took us close to two hours. It was definitely an adventure and on the way home it gave us a chance to mingle with an entire busload of kids coming home from high school.

If you ever get the chance to go the Victoria Butterfly Gardens, I highly recommend it. It is an amazing paradise of flora and fauna and every species of butterfly you can imagine.

The Emerging Room (or butterfly nursery) was very interesting seeing all the different stages of a butterfly's life cycle.

We were lucky enough to have a butterfly land on A and me.

While I think this caterpillar is totally cool looking, I definitely wouldn't want him crawling on me. He was huge!

I think that was the thing that surprised me the most - I had no idea how huge some species of butterflies grow. K really wanted a Blue Morpho to land on her but whenever one was close she got a little freaked out because they are as big as A's hand (see the JAKES Place banner for an example. That Blue Morpho is eating a VERY ripe banana and it's almost as long as the entire banana.)


Not only are the butterflies amazing, the flora and fauna at the Victoria Butterfly Gardens are too. We saw flamingos and giant koi fish,

cute little red-beaked finches,

parakeets and a parrot,

plus tortoises, turtles, tropical ducks, quails, doves and an Ibis.


Among the orchids, hibiscus and other tropical plants were mini truffula trees,

duck pom poms,

pipe cleaner bushes,

and pitcher plants.

Ok, maybe I made up a few of those names but they certainly looked like how I described them.

We ended our day by watching cartoons and eating dinner in our hotel room. We would be taking the last ferry back the next day so we could have a little more time to explore. Don't worry, that post will be up tomorrow ;)  But... if you make it to that one you will have seen our whole vacation. Congratulations!