Vancouver Island Travelogue

Vancouver Island in August is Mother Nature at her most generous. Plump, juicy blackberries drip off the wild bushes everywhere you look. We picked a basket and made a pie.

The penultimate decadence is a perfectly ripe fig. August on the island is fig season. We feasted.

The hummingbirds get drunk on grape juice.

The chestnuts grow so sweet.

August on the island is also dahlia season. The annual fair occurs at the end of the month at which the award for World’s Best Dahlia finds a home. Gardeners worldwide lovingly tend to their blooms gunning for the prize. The garden was a firework display with some of the blooms bigger than my head!

The water and the air there can be sipped for physical and spiritual cleansing. Especially at the pot holes where the water streams in directly from the glaciers. The icy cold clear water excites and rejuvenates. The rocks are warmed by the sun. It is transcendent to nestle goose bumped skin into a bed of warm rocks to let the heat transfer deep into the contracted muscles. The waters are healing medicine.

Bouchart Gardens was bursting in bloom with dahlias and roses!

Let’s look at the roses first:

The dahlias are a total firework display.

We especially enjoy the Japanese Garden that sounds as beautiful as it appears.

And the wildflowers splashing their colour around like paint:

And the spectacular friends spoiling us rotten:

It was a special family vacation.

Rhea took some great shots too: