Victoria, CA

We caught the ferry across to Victoria today, can i just say how bizarre it is to be in Victoria but not in Australia!!!
We had lunch as soon as we got off the ferry and then we went on a bus tour of Victoria. Victoria is one of the most beautiful cities i've ever seen, it is known as the Garden City, while our Victoria is known as the Garden state, how freaky!
After the bus tour we went to the Royal Wax Museum, relaxed by the water for an hour or so, before going to Miniature world.

The below photographs is of the Empress a posh hotel in Victoria, we caught our sight seeing tour from the bus stop in front of this place.











Below are a couple of images from the Wax Museum and Miniature World.












The next day we went whale watching where we actually saw some Orca in their natural habitat!
There are two types of Orca, "Transient", the kind that eat meat, such as seals, penguines and sometimes baby Gray Whales, these are the ones that have given Orca the name of Killer Whale. These Orca usually travel in small numbers and do not mix with the other type of Orca, the "Resident" Orca, which travel in large family groups, called Pods.
There are three pods which use the San Juan Islands as a hunting ground, due to the salmon runs. These are called J Pod, K Pod and L Pod. We were lucky enough to see K and L Pod swimming past our boat. Orca can swim up to 100 miles in an hour, so the photographs we got are mostly just of their fins sticking out of the water. However we did get a good shots of me dressed up in my Whale Watching Gear! Weggie calls me the yellow marshmellow. :(













After the whale watching we went to Butchart Gardens, an absolutely amazing place. It was lovely walking in the shaded Japanese Garden, or sitting under a pergola looking out at the rose Garden. We've included a picture of the map as well as the pictures we took of the gardens.


The next day before we caught the bus to Vancouver, we visited Craigdarroch Castle, which was built by a man who sadly enough died before the castle was completed.