Dragons, and Butterflies, and Flowers, Oh My!

Our adventures today took us to the limits of our abilities to deal with each other (we've decided all future trips will institute required "alone time" on the third day), followed by a jaunt on public transportation to the Butterfly Gardens and Butchart Gardens, both north of downtown Victoria.

Before leaving town for the day, we separately watched bits and pieces of the Dragonboat races that were being held all day in the harbor and did a little shopping.
As a gay couple said to the proprietor of the Woofles store downtown (in which we found nothing for Ripley), town was "Messy with tourists," so we didn't watch long. After leaving the crowds behind we headed out of town.

The Butterfly Gardens were very cool. Actually they were quite warm and muggy, and filled with not only over 3,000 butterflies, but several types of tropical birds and ginormous goldfish.

We were dive bombed by several butterflies, and I and a couple other folks I noticed were actually landed upon.

This is a butterfly incubator of sorts.

The crysalids that the gardens import get placed here every week, then the butterflies hang out here until they're ready to fly out.

These guys are eating bananas in the tray, and the ones on the left have beautiful blue tops to their wings, but are very shy about showing them.
This is my favorite picture of the entire trip.

The Butchart Gardens were 2 km down the road and were built on the site of an old limestone quarry. Rubbing the boar's nose in this statue is supposed to be good luck (which is why it's so shiny).

Walking into view of the Sunken Garden took my breath away. This was the actual quarry, and in the upper right of the picture you can see the stack from an old cement factory.

This is looking back up to where I took the picture above.

I was drawn to the unusual plants - the black leaves,

and the hanging flowers of the Fuschia plant.

This hole in a huge bush looking out to the water was unfortunately the last picture I managed to take before my battery died, but the entire garden and the fireworks display were amazing.

Everyone told us this was a must-do in Victoria, and I agree wholeheartedly.