We are stardust, we are golden

On Sunday, we set out to see Butchart gardens near Brentwood Bay. We knew we had to catch the 75 bus from Government Ave., but the current schedule had been replaced with the summer one, which didn't go into effect until Monday. We waited forever. Just when we were about to give up, our bus came and we were gleeful to get out of town for the day, but nettled for having to pay $2.25 for the ride.

It was about a 30 minute ride, and the bus took us right up to the gate. Not bad! Having spent our morning waiting on the bus, we were famished. Luckily they had a hot dog cart there to squeeze a few more loons out of us and we were thankful for it. They did not have any Grey Poupon - we wondered if this was indeed a world-class garden. It only took a few moments inside to repent for those thoughts as we were surrounded by the most magnificent fuschia and begonias we'd ever seen.

The entire self-guided tour took a couple of hours. We visited everything from the Sunken to the Italian gardens. We stopped to smell the roses, two times! By the end, we felt we deserved gelato - I picked hedgehog flavored (I mean flavoured). There in the courtyard sat the Porcellini statue, a replica of one in Firenze, Italia. The sign instructed me to rub his nose for good luck. It was polished from all of the folks before me who'd done the same. My newly acquired good luck came to me when the 75 bus arrived 5 minutes after we left the gardens to take us back to Victoria. As we pulled away, we regarded the gardens as a worth-while venture out of town and a relaxing way to spend a day.