Butchart Gardens

We recently enjoyed a day walking around these beautiful gardens.  Butchard Gardens was opened back in 1904 in the remains of a rock quarry, it makes an interesting backdrop for the flowers and plants that adorn this park.

Located between Victoria and Sidney, British Columbia, it's a great place to spend some time.  Adam even liked it!

Enjoy the pictures, don't forget to double click to open to full screen.

Olympic National Park

One of the great things about cruising is that we get to see all kinds of cool ocean life and scenery.  Unfortunately, this is all from the boat and does not provide us with much exercise nor contact with the earth.  Luckily we get to come into areas like Port Angeles, Washington.  This quaint city is located just minutes from the entrance to Olympic National Park.  This park has been on my to-do list for many years.

Note: Click on the pics for a larger view.

We rented a car and took a two day tour of the area on the north and west sides of the park.  On day one we headed up to Hurricane Ridge, this is an area at about 5,500 feet that provides a stunning view of the Olympic mountain range including Mount Olympus.  We did a short hike to the top of Hurricane Hill, about 3 miles total and 6,500 elevation.  The hike was beautiful but cold and windy, Adam was not happy at all!  No snow on us but you could easily see the flurries across the valley.  After completing this hike we headed back to town so I could order my laptop computer to replace the one that crashed (literally) during our last passage.

The afternoon was filled with a short waterfall hike to Madison Falls and then up Elwah Valley.  Elwah is the area that they are doing a major restoration project that includes removing two dams to allow the salmon to run free up the river.  The dam we visited was very interesting to see. Adam loved the area not only for the views but it was considerably warmer as well.

Day two was much more aggressive!  We started the day with a hike to Marymere Falls, these falls were off Crescent Lake.  A great hike and a beautiful falls!

Next, we went up to the Sol Duc area, after a look around the hot springs resort (no swimming), we grabbed lunch and then headed to the Sol Duc waterfall trail.  This trail was my favorite as we crossed many streams with moss covered rocks, one of my favorite picture taking opportunities.  Sol Duc falls was spectacular with three channels of water flowing hard through the canyon.  On the way back we stopped for more photos in the streams, unfortunately my camera detached from my tripod and fell hard to the ground.  I always keep a clear filter on my lens and this time the filter saved me, a $20 piece of glass saved my $1,000 lens!  Whew!

I only had my wide angle lens for the rest of the trip which was up to the Hoh Rain-forest.  Naturally we run into a herd of Elk on the trail.  The wide angle lens did not do the encounter justice but it was very exciting to see these large animals up close!  The Hoh Rain-forest was nice, very wet and greener than you could imagine. They get over 240 inches of rain a year there, that's 2/3'rds of an inch every day! We were exhausted after a very full day and only hiked a short loop but it was beautiful.  Maybe more next time.

I would highly recommend this park, lots to see and great hiking.  I would really like to hike the Hoh Rain-forest to the Blue Glacier at the base of Olympus, only 17 miles one-way!  Maybe another day.

Thanks for reading!