An early room delivered breakfast that was over catered for due to somebody (Penny) putting 2 against two hot breakfasts meaning we had four hot breakfasts as well as cereal :-) Well at least we could fill up for lunch as well... Transfers all went well, albeit a bit of a shuffle between the pick up at 8:30 am by a small bus to get us to the coach which took us to the ferry (vehicular ferry) and then continued to take us to the final stop at Victoria at around 1:30 pm. Thought we were getting dropped off at the Chateau Victoria Hotel but that wasn't the case, luckily it was only a 100 metre walk to the hotel from the drop off point. We checked in as the room was ready, dropped the bags in the room had a quick freshen up before jumping on the public bus to get to Butchart Gardens.
A point to note here for any Australian or State government public transport officials, "Pick up your game!" as the costs of public transport in Victoria and Canada generally are crazily cheap. Butchart Gardens are about a 40 min drive from down town Victoria and its fare? . . . $2.50 regardless of the stop off along the route or $5 for an all day pass. The route was equivalent to travelling Ipswich to Brisbane for $5 return! We had a bit of a chuckle at one of the bus drivers who took us to the gardens and named him Mad Max as he must have been one of the drivers for the movie, the leather glove gave the game away but the bus was pushed to its limits for most of the trip :-).
During the summer months the gardens also put on a fireworks show so we stayed for that too, it was an Aladdin theme and quite well done.
There were thousands at the event meaning we caught the last bus home at 11:20 pm. Sleep in tomorrow as we forewent the HOHO bus and booked an Orca whale watching tour instead at 10 am.
Cheers
Gary and Penny
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