Day 4-A: Friday 7/12/13 Ferry ride to Victoria, British Columbia and Butchart Gardens

We woke up early, early Friday morning, broke camp and hopped in the car for Port Angeles.  There we had a great breakfast and caught the 8:15 COHO ferry for Victoria, British Columbia.  It was a 90 minute ride.  Another beautiful blue sky..

The harbor in Victoria as we approached on the ferry...

These are houseboats, like Tom Hanks' house in "Slerpless in Seattle."

The Empress Hotel...

The government building... 

Victoria has the oldest Chinatown in British Columbia...but it doesn't come close to Chinatown in New York.

All the cabs we saw in Victoria (and Washington too) were Priuses, so I had to take a picture.  We took a cab to Butchart Gardens after walking around the town for awhile (gulp, $50 fare, but we were short on time to get to the Gardens and back before the ferry left at 3:15).

Butchart Gardens were beautiful and well worth the cost and the time it takes to get there.

The garden is divided into several themed gardens.  My favorite was the Sunken Garden, which was a limestone quarry on the Butchart's property that served Mr. Butchart's cement factory.  Mrs. Butchart turned it into this beautiful garden.

We also really liked the Japanese Garden but for some reason did not get any pictures of it, except for a picture of this odd little "monkey tree".

The formal Italian Garden was interesting because of it choice of color..all hot colors!

Some other interesting things in at Butchart Gardens...

We left Butchart Gardens and rode the city bus ($2.50 each but an hour drive) back to Victoria.  Todd really wanted to eat at an English pub, so that's what we did with our remaining time.  Of course he had a rueben and a Guinness stout (or two).

Todd an hour later on the ferry!

We got back to Port Angeles and headed    to Hurricane Ridge.