Today, we are off to Hurricane Ridge in the Olympic National Park and to get our Passport Book stamped for the very first time. David bought us the book about 5 years ago for us to have all the National Parks stamp our book as a souvenir of our travels. Unfortunately, every time we have visited a park we did not have the book with us.
Before we visited the park we took a detour to see some of the lavender fields around Port Angeles. The one field we found was really pretty and smelled nice, too.

After having the Passbook stamped we were off up the mountain and about to see some spectacular views of Washington state.

We passed several areas of roadside flowers that were quite pretty and just begging to be photographed.

 I thought the next photograph was interesting of a dead? tree stump. It had leaves and flowers growing out of the trunk. Unfortunately, I do not know if the plants growing out of the trunk were replicas of the host tree or sprouts from somewhere else.

We saw several deer up at the top of Hurricane Ridge and they must have been used to people because they did not bound away when people got close to them. One photo shows the picture of 2 fawns (they were following their Mum).

I think the deer in the next photo is saying "so there" due to him or her sticking his or her tongue out at me or it is licking its lips after a tasty piece of grass.

We left Hurricane Ridge and caught the ferry in Port Angeles for Victoria on Vancouver Island. This is what greeted us as the ferry docked in Victoria.

I said to Gary I should buy the boat with the Union Jack on its side. He said we would have to sell our house and first born to buy it. Sorry, David!!
Our first day on the island was my much anticipated visit to Butchart Gardens. I have heard nothing but wonderful things about the gardens from everyone who had ever visited them.

The trash cans/rubbish bins were interesting. All of them had live flowers planted on the top. Unfortunately, the one I photographed is hard to see due to the background.

An area of the garden was dedicated to Native Canadians by having two totem poles in their honour.

The final photograph (phew!!) shows a picture off a dinner plate dahlia and Gary's hand to give you a comparison of the size of the flower head.

The gardens were not as big as I had imagined but they were certainly spectacular and most colourful. A lovely visit.