1995 Trip to Vancouver Island, British Columbia

The following diary is from a trip that was taken to Vancouver Island and the Northern Gulf Islands. We left homr form Kent WA at 5:30 and started driving towards Twawwassen, BC where we would take the a Canadian ferry over to the large Island . The weather was sunny and in the 70's. We arrived at the border at 8:00 pm and there were only two other vehicles ahead of us at the truck route. We reached Twawwassen at 8:30 and caught the 9:00 ferry going to Victoria. We never check the ferry schedules before we leave home because they leave every hour or so. We figure that if we miss one we don't have that long of a wait for the next one.

We drove to the Butchart Gardens off highway 17 in Brentwood, after getting off the ferry. This garden was originally planted by a private family to hide a big hole created by a rock quarry in 1904. It now covers fifty acres with over a half dozen different theme gardens including an Italian and Japanese garden. It is very impressive considering how it was built by a private family and how well kept up it is. It rained/sprinkled most of the time we were there, which must happen a lot because there were several round barrells throughtout the gardens containing umbrellas you could use and drop off whenever it stopped raining. The gardens are open all year round. I'm sure they plan it so something is always in bloom. After leaving here we drove drove down to Victoria. We stopped at Sydney first to get a hotel as we would be going to Vancouver then next day.

We decided to drive out to Beacon Hill Park which is out by the water. This is a great place to go on a nice weekend day although it can get busy. We stopped at the petting zoo where Cindy took Shawna in to pet the animals. We also walked around for a little while as kids were flying kites and we drove near the water also. We took the kids thru Minature World and the Empress Hotel. Minature World is a great place to take kids as it has about 80 a minature scenes including doll houses, circuses, childrens stories, battle scenes, and much more. A must see at least once if you have young kids. This is located on the side of the street to the Empress Hotel. This is where we took the kids next as we showed them pictures of the history of the hotel, sat in the lobby and wrote postcaeds and looked in several of the giftshops.

Next we went to the Parliament Building where the British Columbia Legislature is located. Parliament was not in session today but we have been there on a Monday to watch and it does get interesting watching the conservatives and liberals debate topics. The kids were impressed with the building and the history behind the Parliament. We went to the Royal British Columbian Museum for a couple hours and the kids enjoyed this even more as it is four floors of history and is very well organized. The kids enjoyed the history of the providence as we have been to many places that they discussed. It was time to get something to eat so we went to McDonalds for the kids before starting back to the hotel in Sydney. It had been a long day and we were all tired but we knew we would be going home tomorrow. Everybody was ready to go home but were glad to have gone on the trip.

We drove 150 today.