Day 50 Victoria, Canada

 I took almost 200 photos today and every single one of them is perfect because how could you not take a lovely photo at The Buchart Gardens.  The gardens cover an area of 55 acres of a 130 acre estate. It began as an idea, more than 100 years ago, when Jennie Buchart decided to beautify the worked-out limestone quarry that supplied her husbands cement plant.  The old quarry is now one of the most photographed places in the world and is known as the Sunken Garden. 

Jennie didn't stop there as she expanded the area to include a Japanese, Rose, Italian and Mediterranean garden.  There is even a large Carousel with 30 hand crafted animals and chariots. There are so many fountains that I lose count but the most impressive is the Ross Fountain at the end of the sunken garden that was designed by a grandson of Jennie Buchart.

We were on the bus at 7.30 this morning to arrive for breakfast in the Garden Restaurant at the privately owned Buchart Gardens.  It was one of the best breakfast we have had on this tour.  We all gobbled down our breakfast because we had the Buchart Gardens to ourselves until the gates opened to the public at 9am.   There are more than a million visitors to the gardens each year! 

The map we are handed on arrival is very helpful with a suggested route throughout the extensive gardens and we follow it through the gardens.  We chatted to one of the gardeners on our journey (there are 50 gardeners full time) and I asked if she loved her job.  She replied "Well I have only worked here for half an hour.  I normally work in the gift shop but the gardeners were getting behind in some things so they asked for volunteers for a day so I put my hand up".

Thankfully we were allocated around two hours to stroll through the gardens that was ample time.  Of course you could stay there all day and still find something different to see! But, we were running to a tight schedule today, for different tours, so it was back on the bus and back to our hotel for our next tour that was a horse and carriage ride through the back streets of the older part of Victoria.

We were joined in our carriage by friends Jim and Kerry and I must say we did more talking than watching but it was fun to sit in the carriage and hear the clip clop of our horses hooves as they traversed the roads.  Our carriage driver pointed out various points of interest and it was easy to photograph them at the gentle pace we were maintaining.  The weather has turned cold with intermittent light rain today.  Thank goodness it is the last day of our tour.  We have been extremely lucky for the past 15 days that we have had sunshine.

The farewell dinner in the evening was also our goodbye to the tour group who are continuing on to an Alaskan cruise.  There are six of us who are not doing the cruise. We will probably never see these people again, but never say never......