We woke up really early for our ride to Victoria on the Victoria Clipper. It left at 7:30 am, so we had to be there at 6:30 am. We woke up around 5:15 am to meet Troy's parents and catch the bus to get down to Pier 69. We finally boarded and were served a decent continental breakfast which included yogurt or cereal with milk, a blueberry muffin, a small cheese wheel, crackers, and Craisins. Thankfully the weather was decent, although not totally clear. We couldn't see any of the mountains that I knew surrounded us, but at least it was partly sunny and wasn't raining.

We arrived in Victoria around 10:30 and it took forever to get through immigration. We finally got onto our tour bus around 11 and had a short tour of the city before heading to the Butchart Gardens. We happened to be there on Victoria Day, so there were lots of festivities and a parade going on near the waterfront, so the tour bus had to avoid that area unfortunately. It didn't take long to get to the gardens though. We had about two hours to meander through looking at tons and tons of nicely landscaped scrubs, bushes, and flower patches. There were tulips everywhere. At the end we stopped in the gift shop and I actually bought some souvenirs, which I don't normally do on trips. The Butchart Gardens were pretty impressive. I could have stayed there another couple of hours probably.

The tour bus dropped us off at our hotel, the Royal Scot, which is just a block away from the waterfront. It was a nice hotel, despite being a little dated. We quickly headed out again and were pretty hungry, so we went to a place I'd read about called Red Fish Blue Fish. The line to order was intimidatingly long, but we waited anyway... and waited... and waited. After about 45 minutes, we finally ordered and got our food about 15 minutes later. Troy and I shared the 2 piece halibut and chips (for $20) and it was awesome. I can't say it was worth the wait, but it came close.

After that we walked through Chinatown and the big retail area. Troy and I continued on to Beacon Hill Park while his parents took a little rest at the hotel. I enjoyed walking through the park and sitting on a bench to rest for a while. We eventually found the Mile 0 marker for the Trans-Canada Highway, which is almost a 5,000 mile long highway that stretches all across Canada to the Atlantic Ocean.

We were a little hungry by then, so we stopped for an ice cream sundae at The Soda Shoppe on Government Street. We got a scoop of cookies & cream, strawberry, and chocolate, topped with marshmallow cream, whipped cream, pecans, and two cherries. It was a little overpriced (as was pretty much everything in Victoria), but it was nice to rest a bit and the sundae actually was very good.

After that we were pretty tired, so we headed back to the hotel and played a few games of pool and shuffleboard with Troy's parents before calling it a night.