Amy Marie Visits: Butchart Gardens, Vancouver Island BC
Butchart Gardens is world class. Simply stunning! It must be seen to
be believed. 100 years ago, the wife of a
cement manufacturer converted a limestone quarry into sunken gardens for their
own enjoyment. This began with the 1907
construction of a Japanese garden. The
sunken gardens were completed in 1921, the Italian garden in 1929, and the
rose garden a short time later. Descendants of the Butchart
family retain ownership of the Gardens and continue to guide its ongoing growth
and development.
We arrived at the boat dock, at the base of the Japanese garden, shortly after 2pm. Small vessels are allowed to tie to mooring buoys for up to 24 hours. There is room for ~ 5 boats under 30’ in length. At the top of the dock ramp there is an intercom where you can request admission to the park. An attendant arrives within 5 minutes to collect admission and buzz you into the garden. Upon walking through the gate, you are immersed in the lush beauty of the Japanese Garden.
With the aid of the map, exploring the garden is a non-stop botanical adventure. I have no idea how large the landscaping staff is, but it must take an army of people to maintain the degree of excellence that is on display in every direction. We could see many fresh plantings that indicate the high level of effort required to provide such a colorful visual and textural treat.
We began our tour in the midafternoon. I would allow 3 hours to fully enjoy the gardens. There are 3 options on site for food. There is a white tablecloth restaurant, which unfortunately was not open for dinner on the night we visited. The second option was cafeteria style in a very visually pleasing building with skylights to create a sunny interior. The final option was a snack bar. We chose the cafeteria style option for our dinner. This allowed us to linger a bit longer and revisit the gardens as the sun was nearing the horizon and creating softer lighting conditions. With the shift is lighting and a calming of the wind, the fragrance of the flowers was more prominent and the colors more calming. The crowds also had dwindled dramatically. We enjoyed the early evening experience as it was much lower key.
We reluctantly returned to Amy Marie just as the sun was
setting. We wished we had lingered even
longer yo see the illuminated garden.
The park was open till 11pm, and it would have been yet another
experience to have seen it after dark. We will incorporate that into our next visit.
The following day we moved the boat, a short distance, to Tod Inlet and dropped the hook. It is surrounded by steep forested hillsides and is on the south side of the gardens. There is a mile long path to the front entrance of the gardens from the inlet dock.
Purple Martins bird community
Judging from the number of boats it is a popular anchorage. There is no mystery why this might be true. It is its own destination. Old dock pilings are covered with a plethora of purple martin birdhouses. Their songs fill the air, especially in the mornings and evenings. There is a nice beach, and the local yacht club provides a park host, who is anchored to a floating dock, and available to answer any questions you might have. We dinghied over to talk to him about hiking trails.
Boaters enjoying the ambiance of Tod Inlet
Track Logs
- Link to our Summer of 2023 Track Logs
Comments
Post a Comment