Hatley Park

Today we did our final outing in Vancouver Island. We visited Hatley Park Gardens which is the garden of Royal Road's University in Victoris. It is an intact Edwardian Estate and a National Historic Site. The Park is a vast area surrounded by old growth forest. It has 3 themed gardens - the Italian Garden, the Japanese garden and the rose garden. The rose garden is witout roses because of the time of the year.

The wisteria bower in the Italian Garden.

Peacock posing

Hatley Castle

4 pictures of the Japanese Garden

These flowers are everywhere along the roadside and look very pretty against stone.

When we had finished wandering through the gardens, a gardener told us that there was a nice walk in the forest across the road. It was called Charlie's Trail and meandered alongside Charlie's Creek, It was really nice particularly near the waterfall and rock garden. We discovered that the trail joins up with one of the island's longest trail, the Galloping Goose Trail which is 60km long. Having already spent about an hour on Charlie's Trail we decided that Galloping Goose was not for us.

Tomorrow is the big clean up in order to leave everything spick and span for Ted and Nancy. It is unlikely that I will put up any new posts until we are settled in our next home exchange in Grimsby (near Toronto and Niagara Falls).

The Abkhasi Garden

The Abkhasi Garden is a heritage garden created in Victoria by Prince and Princess Abkhasi.They started work on it in 1946 and continued improving it for 40 years.After their death the garden changed hands and in 2000 the Land Conservancy purchased the property to save it from becoming a townhouse development. It is different again to the Butchart Gasrdens and to Glendale. It is on a much smaller scale and is also very beautiful. We enjoyed our visit there today eventhough the weather is quite cool.

This is a very popular plant in B.C. I don't know what it is but I like it.

May is the month for rhododendrons.

A turtle in one of the ponds.

Island Princess - flower arranging, vegetable carving and cake decoration.

Views of the Island Princess.

Flower arranging demonstration.

Vegetable carving demonstration.

Cake Buffet Extravaganza.

Photos from cruise to Alaska 4 - Ketchikan

First views of Ketchikan from the Island Princess.

It rains so much in Ketchikan that they have a liquid sunshine gauge.

Creek Street was the red light district of Ketchikan.

Dolly's bedroom where all the action took place.

Dolly's hats.

Silk condoms fashioned into flowers to decorate the bathroom.

Dolly's house now a museum to her hectic life1

Jim finally got a photo of skunk cabbage - it stinks!

Inside the Beaver Meeting House at Saxman Native Village.

Natives dancing. The children were hilarious!

Needing a walking aid is no deterrent to dancing!

Totems at the Saxman Native Village.

This totem represents a politician who visited the Saxman Village on one occasion. The Natives went to great expense to provide food etc. In their tradition it was expected that the guest would return the favour with some kind of valuable gift. However, this politician, being unaware of what was expected, did not. Because of this the natives painted the ears and eyes of the politician red to show his shame!

Views on return trip to Vancouver.