Day 7 (7/17) – Breakfast across the street at Belleville’s; crepes, blintzes, and French toast. Jess tried a London Fog, she liked it.
Back in the van and north to the Butterfly Gardens. Lots of creatures beyond butterflies hanging about in the space. The leafcutter ants in the lobby are rather fun to watch. An endless line of creatures cutting off bits of leaf and carrying them to their farms on the other side. The exhibit has a long piece of (fake?) vine that winds back and forth a few times from plants to farms so the ants have quite the distance to travel.
In the main exhibit hall there are butterflies, a flamingo, parrots, reptiles, birds, frogs, and probably more. It was hot and humid by design. We thought this would be an issue for Heather, but she spent more time in there than the rest of us taking pictures and videos–particularly the parrots.
After cooling down from the butterfly sauna our trip continued down the road to the Butchart Gardens. A large area filled with carefully cultivated gardens of various types. We had some pastries in the cafe to call lunch before beginning our meanderings.
From the local-artist gallery I decided I really liked this metal maple leaf, it’s about 12 inches across and 14 inches tall:
My original plan was to, next, take a ferry across the Saanich Inlet on our way to the northern part of the island. But there was a rather lengthy-looking line for the ferry and it wasn’t clear how long it was going to take to catch a ride (this is a much smaller ferry than one we took to Victoria). So instead we drove around the inlet to Malahat Skywalk. A tourist trap if there ever was one. It’s a large, tall cylindrical structure with a walking ramp to the top. At the top are views of the inlet, a “web walk”, a glass ledge to stand on, and a very long slide swirling you back to the bottom. I took the slide first and Corinne followed, but then Heather froze up. So she and Jess walked back down. You can take the slide as many times as you want, but you have to walk all the way back up. Corinne and I rode it a second time before heading out.
From there it was just driving up to Hotel Feng in Parksville. Dinner was A&W eaten at the hotel. Canadian A&W (a separate corporation from American A&W) sadly does not sell fried cheese curds as its American cousin does.