Reflections.....

Into the Japanese Gardens of Hatley Castle, and to the pool. This bridge goes to a tiny island in the middle of the pool.


There are sculptures of herons , and they have been joined by a pair of mallards enjoying the sun.


I became fascinated by the reflections. This is the last picture in the previous blog turned upside down and cropped to just the reflections. The odd looking spots are floating leaves in the pool.


This is a reflection picture taken from the little bridge. Thanks to Rain, who photoshopped out the floating leaves that looked like UFOs in the 'sky'.


This is another reflection in this pool. It was just the perfect amount of movement in the water - just the tiniest ripple that distorted the picture.

Sorry to bore you! Back to reality...... The little bridge goes over to the tiny island and this Oriental building where you can stand and admire the pool.

This rose still looks lovely......

Out of the Japanese Gardens and back to the pretty paths.

In a few more days there won't be many leaves left on the trees. It is a beautiful time, but I hate to think of winter coming.

Hatley Castle

Hatley Castle, as promised......

Driving into the grounds - a pretty birch and a monkey puzzle tree.

Looking up to the castle from the guest parking lot down by the lagoon. It was built in 1908 by James Dunsmuir, with the best of everything from around the world.

Lavender is planted along many of the paths and hangs out over so you brush against it as you walk and get the wonderful perfume.

This is part of the view from the castle - the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the mountains of the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State. In the last batch of pictures I drove along the spit, which can be seen here with the lagoon in the foreground.

In the 100 year old garden the paths wind through the trees. There are many quite tame peacocks in the garden.

I thought mating season would be spring, but this fellow is putting on a show for his lady.

And this is from the back as he vibrated his backside. The missus looks rather bored....

There are not many roses left in the rose garden.

There are some lovely big red cedars in the garden area.

Then into the Japanese Garden.
More tomorrow!

West of Victoria

I have itchy feet. A week home working and being as busy as I always am and I feel the itch. And then the sun comes out and I just must get away. Luckily, I live in one of the most beautiful places on earth, so finding lovely places to go is easy.

Today I headed south from Nanaimo towards Victoria. After a short visit to Mayfair Mall, I left my usual tourism spots and headed west to Esquimalt. I stopped at a store and bought a good map as this part of Greater Victoria is not familiar to me. I saw a small park marked and made my way there.


It is called Saxe Park and is on a headland overlooking the Royal Roads (Roads meaning a partly sheltered anchorage). The sailing ships anchored here in the early days. This is the view looking to Sooke and out to Asia....

Vancouver Island is a very large rock. The RCMP do a charity bike ride down the length of the Island called 'Tour de Rock'. Here the south end of the rock meets the sea.

Many of the trees show the force of the wind from the ocean.

There are still quite a few hardy flowers around, and the holly berries above the attractive rock.
This little park has lots of places to sit and enjoy the views.

Then, a drive farther west across the Esquimalt harbour, to the long spit. The seaward side of the spit has lots of logs brought in by the storms.

Inside of the spit is a sheltered lagoon. Someone must have put out some bird seed or some other treat, because there were oodles of feathered critters along the shore.

There were hundreds of Canada geese, two swans, seagulls, pigeons, crows, and several different types of ducks.

I don't recall seeing a goose smile before..... but this one looks quite friendly.

Looking across the lagoon is Hatley Castle, now housing Royal Roads University. If you tune in tomorrow I will take you over to the castle and the lovely gardens around it.

A Grand Day!

It was one of those grand autumn days. We haven't had very many nice days since summer....

I went shopping this morning, and the view from the Sears parking lot was spectacular. Mt. Benson has a fuzzy hat.

Then I drove around Brannan Lake. Brannan Lake is famous for its prison, but if you can ignore the presence of this at the end of the lake, it is quite lovely.

A gaggle of geese had found a nice place to spend the day.

Here is another view of Mt. Benson's hat.....

Sidney and the Butchart Gardens

Another trip this weekend to Sidney and the Butchart Gardens to see the autumn colour.
Have a look!

http://www.members.shaw.ca/mid-islandcam/

Refresh if you aren't getting Oct. 8 pictures.......

A Day in Victoria

Yesterday the rain stopped and the sun came out for a while.

I spent the day in Victoria - from the Parliament Buildings to the seaside to my favourite store, Chintz and Co. To see more pictures of my day, go to:
http://www.members.shaw.ca/mid-islandcam/
Refresh if you aren't getting today's pictures!