Wow - what an amazing morning!

We got up and breakfasted and then went for a walk around the harbour before our whale watching extravaganza, admiring the different sites of Victoria and looking at the different floating homes.

At half 9 we made our way to the whale watching where we were suited up and boarded our boat ready to go and look for whales. To begin with (when we were sheltered) it was relatively warm but as we hit the open waters it became a little more chilly and I was glad of my layers. As we sped through the water we were looking for whales. We soon got to a reserve where we were lucky enough to see harbour seals, a sea otter and some elephant seals. The sea otter is apparently called Ollie and even has his own Facebook page. He was so totally chilled out and relaxed and really didn't seemed bothered by us at all. After watching Ollie for a while we saw 2 bald eagles sitting on a rock and then were lucky enough to see some elephant seals. They are pretty big beasts and they started to have a bit of a play fight while we watching. I found this all pretty exciting and we still hadn't seen the main event yet (the whales).

So we left the elephant seals behind and headed out to American waters to see what we could find and we were so totally lucky as we saw a humpback whale and not far off in the distance really quite close. So we stayed and watched the whale blowing out water, displaying his dorsal fin and flicking his tail for ages as everytime we went to leave it seemed to make more of a display for us.

So we finally bid farewell to our new friend and continued back to Canadian waters where we saw 2 more humpbacks but this time so amazingly close, probably only a metre away and this time we didn't just see it's fun and tail but also saw its face - amazing is not even the word. It was absolutely fantastic, the only downside was that it was so close that I didn't get a photo as I was expecting it to be so much further away.

So after all the excitement of watching whales and humpback whales we made our way back to the harbour with a couple of twists to finish! We then grabbed some lunch in Burger King with shocking service before jumping back in the bus and making our way to the Buchart Gardens.

While at the gardens we explored the different gardens, ate ice cream, smelt the different flowers especially the chocolate one, looked at the fountains and admired the fake topiary animals dotted around the place. We also attempted to look for otters but weren't lucky.

On the way back from the gardens we stopped off at a winery to admire the funny labels and saw a European wall lizard and a rabbit!! (Just to add to the wildlife of the day. I should also mention that we have seen flying eagles and herons today). We then drove back to the hotel where we had a little chill before heading out to dinner.