Tag Archives: Scenery

Butch Art

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Monday 22 August 2022 – Today was going to be such a simple day, doing just two Tourist Things – visit the Butchart Gardens and have Afternoon Tea at the Empress. That would leave plenty of time for processing a few photos and writing a brief blog entry for the day.

Why, then, have I somehow got to get about 90 pictures into a coherent story of the day, which included extra activities that weren’t in the plan?

Brace yourself, reader, for a plethora of photographs!

The Butchart Gardens started life in 1904. With a former limestone quarry for her backyard, Jennie Butchart envisaged landscaping a sunken garden in its place, transforming the property for her family—and visitors—for generations to come. You can find more history on its website. Long story short: it’s a brilliant way of spending a couple of hours wandering around being dazzled by the riot of colour, moved by the elegance of presentation and impressed by the skill of organisation. There are a million plants spread across 55 acres of different types of garden – sunken, rose, Japanese, Italian, Mediterranean; there are special features – fountains, statues, a carousel, a performance lawn and stage; and it’s all laid out so it’s easy to walk around.

The gardens lie some 45 minutes from downtown Victoria; buying a ticket gets you a coach journey there (and back, happily) and entry to the gardens. Our coach was driven by a larger-then-life chap called Dan, who, it transpired, used to be an Ice Road Trucker until he visited Victoria, after which he saw no reason to return Up North. He gave us a stream of useful information and terrible jokes on both legs of our journey.

Here are just some of the many, many photos we took at the gardens.

There’s a Rose Carousel, which the kids love. All the animals are hand-carved.

There are fountains.

The flowers are lovely.

It’s just generally a nice place to be.

I could go on. OK, I will.

We got back from the gardens with time to spare before our booking of Tea At The Empress. So we decided to visit the Legislature, because one can and it is very close. It’s an impressive building, both outside

and in.

We had to queue a bit and they didn’t approve of the penknife that I habitually carry, but we came to an agreement that allowed me to pick it up on my way out and it was generally an interesting place to wander about inside – there are free tours which one can join to get more detailed information.

Then we had Afternoon Tea at our hotel.

It’s very posh (well, the surroundings are), and very expensive. We were served with grave courtesy by a waiter whose name should be Karl, but probably isn’t. We took photos of the food. No, you can’t see them. A waiter back in Vancouver told us that it is among the top Teas In The World and that people travel to Victoria just for Tea At The Empress. I suspect that many people travel to Victoria and take Tea At The Empress, which is subtly different. It’s easy to mock, but it really was excellent and we enjoyed it.

After it, though, we needed to walk it off. So we took a stroll around towards Fisherman’s Wharf and beyond.

Fisherman’s Wharf is very photogenic.

and having gone that far, we completed the loop, visiting Ogden’s Point, a sundial art installation, the native art on the breakwater, the world’s tallest totem pole and Beacon Hill Park.

Sorry for all the photos – I left out several dozen – but it was a lovely 5-mile walk discovering a whole section of this very lovely city. It’s very easy to understand how people can come to visit and simply stay.

Tomorrow we leave Victoria, after three very enjoyable days here. To use C. W. McCall’s phrase, “we’re gonna go chasin’ bear”, although he wasn’t talking about what I’m talking about, if you know what I’m talking about. To understand what that last bit of rubbish was really about, come back to these pages. It’s possible we may be off the grid for a bit, so you might have to wait for the next update. You might be mightily relieved about that, I don’t know. Anyway, see you soon, I hope.

Well Empressed with Victoria

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Saturday 20 August 2022 – The plan for the day was pretty straightforward – catch a coach to take us to a ferry to take us across the Straits of Georgia to Victoria, on Vancouver Island, dead south of Vancouver city itself.

A coach duly appeared and we climbed on board, to find that we were the first passengers to be picked up and that there would be several more stops to collect more before we got to the ferry.  The driver made the ride very entertaining, and not by the usual means of commentary about landmarks or other tourist matters of interest.  Jane immediately picked up from a few spoken words that he was a Brit, and it soon became clearer, even without him saying very much more; it was the way he drove.  Drivers in North America, and particularly bus and coach drivers, have a very relaxed way of getting around, waiting patiently at lights or for decently long gaps in the traffic before carrying on.  Our driver, Paul, who turned out to be originally from Guildford, drove like a Brit: edging forward at lights before they changed; edging out at junctions and going for small gaps in the traffic; and generally taking no prisoners as he swung the bus around.

As well as that, since we were sitting just behind him, we could hear the muttered commentary he was making about other road users as he went along.  It didn’t help that his efficiency – for he was undoubtedly an experienced and competent driver – got him to the cruise terminal for his penultimate pickup some ten minutes early, so he sardonically explained that he was driving round the blocks to pass the time, and wasn’t actually lost.  This is Paul, at his final pickup, where he was impatiently awaiting the final people to turn up and board his bus.

When he was using the microphone to talk to the passengers, Paul was (largely) exemplary and free from editorialising. But in other places, when pedestrians were slow to cross the road, or when other drivers dithered or drove erratically, his subvocalised comments were very pithy.  The ferry terminal was chaos because several sailings had been cancelled due to lack of staff, and his comments about that, and the argument he had with officialdom, contributed greatly to the entertainment value of the ride.  The queue of cars, and indeed of hopeful passengers waiting to board, was not insignificant.

Paul’s view was that not everyone would be allowed on board our ferry, and that we should give ourselves a pat on the back for being on the bus, which had a guaranteed place.

The ferry we rode was a big one, capable of carrying over 2,000 passengers.  For most of it, we simply sat in a lounge, though the coffee that Jane went to buy was very welcome and the chat we had with a chap called Bob, originally from Manchester some 40 years ago, was diverting. Also somewhat disconcerting was a sign at each urinal in the gents.

Sources tell me that these signs were up in the ladies, too.

After an hour or so of crossing open sea, we neared land and popped out to take a couple of photos.

Paul found out that there was a big bicycling event, the Tour de Victoria, on, for which local roads in downtown Victoria would be closed, so, in his characteristic way he set our expectations low about how much fun the journey would be.  However, in the end, the roads he needed to use to get to his drop off points were eerily quiet, so he reached the grandly-named Capital City Bus Station with ease.  This actually turned out to be no more than a place where three buses could pull up behind each other, but no matter.  From our point of view it was Our Stop and so we collected our luggage and wheeled it round to the front of our hotel, an enormous slab of masonry called the Fairmont Empress.

Outside, it had lawns of great lushness – a distinct contrast from the dried up turf we’d seen elsewhere – and inside a sizeable reception atrium.

Our room is nice enough; not huge, but with rather a decent view over the harbour.

Our original plan had been to take it easy for the rest of the day, as we have a couple of days here getting up to various things.  But the weather was so lovely that we couldn’t resist going out for a quick walk around and to check up on where we had to check in for those activities.  We passed a harbourside restaurant called Milestones, which could fit us in in about 10 minutes, so we used that time to wander about and take a couple of photos of an undeniably photogenic location.

At lunch, one of the gins on offer was Empress Gin.  The name is not a co-incidence; apparently the Empress Hotel collaborated in its elaboration, and provide the pea blossoms that enable it to turn colour from its naked state

when you add tonic.

(Empress Hotel in the background – see what we did there?)

After lunch we wandered round some more.  There was Something Going On whilst we were lunching which involved some really quite ghastly screeching and caterwauling that was accompanied by a band.  Someone clearly fancied themselves as Clare Torry, but “The Great Gig In The Sky” it was not.  Fortunately this unfocussed keening was eventually replaced by something a bit more ear-friendly, so we wandered over to gawk. The source turned out to be a part of  Victoria’s first ever BIPOC music festival. BIPOC means Black, Indigenous and People of Colour and the festival is an event by BC Black History Awareness Society.

We also visited the Netherlands Centennial Carillon, cunningly arriving there just as it struck 5.

There are 11 carillons in Canada.  I don’t know why.

I think we’re rather going to like Victoria – certainly around the harbour area, it’s very attractive, and there are any number of interesting statues around,

even in the very edges of steps and lawns.

Cars are not the only mode of transport

and there are some lovely displays of flowers and topiary by the Empress.

There was a nice sunset

and when darkness fell, we took a further wander to see if what we had been told earlier, that the Legislature Building was nicely illuminated at night, was true.

Since we were out (and, to be frank, since the noise from the festival was going to stop us from getting any sleep) we extended our walk along Government Street, which was extremely lively.

Even as late as 9.30pm, many shops were open

and, it being Saturday night, there was a great buzz about the place. Thankfully by the time we had finished our meanderings the loud festival music had stopped!

We shall discover more over the next couple of days.  We  have a couple of formal tourist activities planned, but it looks like there’s much scope for wandering around and stumbling across good things. So please check in to see what we got up to and what we found.

 

A Bridge Too Wobbly

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Friday 19 August 2022 – Today’s activity combined two recognised Tourist Must-Do attractions in the Vancouver area – Grouse Mountain and the Capilano Bridge – pretty much an all-day outing. Because we were being taken round these attractions by coach there was the usual milling about worrying about whether we would be picked up OK. Jane got chatting to another couple (from Bracknell, as it happens) who were also in possession of a piece of paper and a worried expression and we agreed that they were unlikely to miss all four of us. In the end, it was all smooth, although not particularly swift; we were led to our coach, we boarded and then… waited until a couple of last-minute stragglers eventually turned up. Whilst we were waiting, it became clear that, while driver Jimmy was a considerably more experienced tour driver than Theresa had been on our Photo Safari in Ketchikan, he was even more garrulous. He kept up an entertaining but ceaseless stream of tourist information, philosophical homilies and moaning about the local government for the whole time he was on board the bus. He definitely knew what he was doing and only one passenger was heard to complain that he spoke too fast, but she was French, so what do I care?

Grouse Mountain is a popular local resort which offers skiing during the winter and just the general benefits of altitude (fresh air and a decent view, ideally) the rest of the year. It all starts with a ride up in a 100-person cable car. I noticed that its maximum load was 98 passengers plus an operator, and a maximum weight of 16230 pounds. This means that the designers expected an average weight of 164 pounds per passenger. I don’t wish to be rude, but I just hope there’s some contingency built into the cable strength given the increase in the overall population’s weight since 1974 when this cable car was opened.

The journey to the top raises you 2800 feet in 6 minutes, and is exactly like cable car rides familiar to anyone who has ever been skiing except that this one has a bit of a tourist commentary from the operator (delivered, as far as I could tell in this instance, in a Yorkshire accent). At the top, you reach “Peak Chalet”, a destination which I’m sure would get Courchevel reaching for its lawyers. Peak Chalet offers a couple of viewing decks and many retail opportunities. It also has an atrium with some great carved pillars.

We had coffee there, admiring what we could see of the view, which, in traditional Walker, erm, tradition “would have been better if it were clearer”.

The area reached by the cable car offers many entertainment possibilities, such as a lumberjack show

ziplining, a raptor demonstration and a grizzly bear enclosure (we didn’t get to see the two resident bears who had wisely disappeared into their forested fastness; but the bear enclosure gave us some useful scale info).

There is a loop trail which has several sculptures hacked out of tree stumps beside it.

The eagle, particularly is a fabulous piece of work. One can take another chair lift to go even higher, so we did. My God, it’s slow. (I bet they run it faster in ski season.) It rises just 400 feet in 15 minutes, over a distance of about 2000 feet. I bet you could walk it faster, but we weren’t in a hurry, so we took it.

At the top you get a view of the middle plateau over what I assume would be a piste were it covered in snow.

They helpfully indicate viewpoints with rather fetching coloured seats.

There’s a wind turbine up there

with a fetchingly illustrated base.

We rode down chairlift and cable car to get back to our coach and Jimmy took us to our next stop, the Capilano Suspension Bridge Park. It’s too easy to assume that this bridge is the big blue suspension bridge you see extending north from Stanley Park. That would be wrong – that one is the Lions Gate Bridge. The Capilano Suspension Bridge is a pedestrian-only (you’ll see why soon) bridge across the Capilano River, which feeds Capilano Lake, which I would love to say is formed into a hydro reservoir by Capilano Dam, but it’s not, dammit – it’s Cleveland Dam. The Capilano name refers to Joe Capilano, a leader of the Squamish from 1895-1910, who fought for the recognition of native rights and lifestyle. The bridge is in a park which has a whole host of tourist delights. To get to most of them, you have to cross the suspension bridge

which is a bit wobbly.

It’s great fun to walk over, and it feels a bit like trying to stay upright walking along the length of a rowing boat in a reasonably severe cross swell, say, about force 6. It was also really quite crowded when we arrived (less so later) which added to the fun.

Once on the other side, there is a very well-engineered forest boardwalk

leading past a raptor demonstration area


(that owl has got the eye roll down to a fine art, I think…

and the Harris Hawk looks pretty unimpressed).

There’s also a high tree walk.


(Actually, I think it’s more extreme physics and engineering, but I’ll cut them some (catenary) slack on that.)

There’s great emphasis on implementing all of this as sympathetically as possible with the environment – traditional building methods, no damage to trees, no major machinery, just pulleys and ropes. It maybe somewhat confected but it’s a seriously impressive setup, and great fun to walk around.

There is one more adventure to be had, which is the cliff walk, to get to which you have to cross the main suspension bridge once more. It’s not as wobbly as the others, and is very nicely bolted on to the cliff. Just as well, really.

All in all, the Park is an entertaining place to spend a couple of hours.

The final call of the day was to the Capilano River Hatchery, which is dedicated to salmon breeding. From a single salmon pair’s clutch of fertilized eggs (which may number as much as 1,000) where six young salmon would survive in the wild, the work of the hatchery means that instead some 300 will make it through the full breeding cycle, which, as well as keeping fishermen and bears happy, has significant environmental benefits.

Beyond educational information boards (which now mean I know the difference between fry, alevins and smolts) there wasn’t much to see at the hatchery, but they did have a salmon ladder the depths of which are visible through windows. Looking at the lower levels, one could see the odd occasional salmon making its way up (normally) the ladder. Strikingly, there was something of a traffic jam at the top

and outside in the river you could make out large numbers of salmon who, one hopes, would soon find the entrance to the ladder so they could get upstream and have a jolly good spawn.

This was the last stop on our tour, and all that remained was to fight our way back through the traffic to our hotel, which gave Jimmy a whole lot more time to dispense his folksy wisdom and undoubted expertise about the city.

Tomorrow we leave Vancouver for some ten days, whilst we travel on to Vancouver Island and beyond. Victoria awaits us tomorrow (coach and ferry permitting) and then we move on to even more excitement before coming back here for a few more days. Please keep your eyes on this site and you can find out what we get up to.