Note: This entry is a work in progress. When I have a few moments, I'll flesh it out and add more information about Butchard Gardens. For now, it gives a brief introduction to Vancouver Island based on the notes I made at the time, and should not be considered a complete entry.

Victoria is the capital of British Columbia, and is located on Vancouver Island - an island to be found just off the coast of mainland Canada which curiously has absolutely nothing to be with the Vancouver I'm staying in apart from having borrowed its name while nobody was looking. Oh, and George Vancouver - the British Navel officer who explored most of the NorthWest coast in the first place and seems to have left his name everywhere he went. I quite like the idea of putting your capital city on an island - even if the island is 290 by 50 miles in size and therefore more of a small country in its own right by British standards - from a national security point of view, back in the times when warfare was raged on the ground, can you think of anything better than being protected from enemy armies massing on the mainland by your own natural moat? The island doesn't even have any bridges connecting it to the mainland, so unless your army came equipped with a fleet of ships, you were stuffed from the start.

At the risk of instantly alienating nearly everybody in North America, I would compare a trip to Vancouver Island and Victoria to a day trip to the Isle of Wight back home. Most tourists sign themselves up for an organised tour on the mainland, as I did, and are then taken to the harbour by coach before joining a boat for the journey across - and there are certainly no shortage of these. Ferries run regularly between Vancouver Island and not only mainland Canada, but also places as far away as Seattle, Washington - so there is obviously no shortage of people wanting to visit. For those on an organised tour, you are then allowed a reasonable amount of time to wander around the touristy inner harbour before being herded on board another coach and whisked off to look at anything the tour company thinks you'd like to see around the island - which isn't much, on a day trip, to be honest.

Most of what Victoria has to offer is clustered around the inner harbour, which isn't a bad thing at all. For a start, everything is within not only walking distance but also line of sight, so you can't get lost. Plus, Victoria's inner harbour really does have a certain charm all of its own which makes you want to find a little coffee shop, plonk yourself down on a plastic seat outside and watch the ferries come and go. Unfortunately, of course, this isn't really possible in North America any more - all the charming little coffee shops are slowly being replaced by branches of Starbucks or the like, where coffee is served to you in multiple sizes with Italian names at prices which require you to take out a second mortgage. Still, at least you've still got the view and the plastic chairs. The Victorian Parliament building, a stones throw from the harbour, is well worth a look even if you're one of those people who walks around places of historical interest glancing at your watch and wondering what you're missing on television. The central dome above the entrance to the parliamentary complex is so finely crafted and elaborate in its design that it feels like it would be more at home in India or the Far East where large buildings seem to be covered in art and carvings wherever you go - the only thing missing here is all the gold.

Inside, four murals in the corners of the central rotunda hall have always courted controversy - they show scenes from the history of British Columbia, and depict the indigenous people of BC being forced to carry out intensive labour under the watchful eyes of white men, who are generally just standing around chatting to each other and not doing any work at all. In one mural, titled "Justice", a local chief is depicted, head bowed, standing before a table full of white judges - this mural illustrates, according to the artist, how the first colonial judge had pacified some troublesome local Indians. These troublesome local Indians were then hanged, an event remembered by the Tsilhqot'in people who mark the anniversary every year.

One of the biggest tourist attractions on Victoria Island, and the place where I spent most of the day getting hopelessly lost, is Butchart Gardens, an extensive public garden north of the city. Now, I'm not usually a fan of floral gardens, where everything is laid out in beds of brightly coloured flowers and neat paths let you wander amongst them - these, in my experience, are usually the places where you find congregations of little old ladies stooping to smell the flowers and not being able to stand up again. I much prefer a good meaty botanical garden like they have in Australia where you can get lost in artificial rainforests and wander along rivers made up to look like something you'd find in the Amazon. In other words, I want to feel like I'm really getting back to nature and wandering out in the depths of the forest. What I don't want, is to walk around in a circle on a neatly paved path and look at a bunch of daffodils planted to look like a big smiley face. Butchard Gardens, I suppose, could be described as the middle ground, and for that reason I felt that it was able to get past my in-built floral garden filter and raise my interest a little - so much so, in fact, that I ended up getting lost and wondering if I would be able to get back to the coach on time.

About Simon and Burfords Travels:

Simon Burford is a UK based travel writer. He will be re-publishing his travel blogs, chapters from his books and other miscellaneous rantings on these pages over the coming weeks and months, and the entry on this page may not necessarily reflect todays date.