|
Butterflies and Ostriches |
 |
 |
 |
|
Friday, 18 June 2004 00:00 |
 This morning, we were up extra early because we wanted to catch the nine o'clock ferry back to Vancouver Island. The weekend forecast is for sunny, hot weather and Vancouverites head for the islands like Torontonians head for cottage country. We arrived at the terminal at 8:00 AM to catch the 9:00 AM ferry. Our ship arrived at Swartz Bay at 10:30 AM and we heard on the radio that the line-ups were now almost two hours long for the later sailings.
We decided to go to the Victoria Butterfly Gardens located in Saanich, not far from the ferry terminal on our way back to the RV Park. It was a wonderful experience to be standing among an array of tropical plants with hundreds of beautiful butterflies floating around us. The plant life alone was very exotic but with the butterflies mixed in, it was an awesome encounter.
We stopped at a local fruit stand on our way to buy some local strawberries and we noticed that they sold ostrich products. As it turns out, we had discovered the Saanichton Christmas Tree & Ostrich Farm! The owners, Mike and Joan Fleming were so informative and allowed us to see the ostriches in their pens. We were also able to see a large number baby ostriches in various stages of growth. From Mike we learned that they grow 1 foot a month and that getting them to three months of age is the biggest challenge. In the wild only 1% of ostriches survive past that critical age when they are finally large enough and fast enough to outrun their predators. We left there with our strawberries and whole lot of interesting information about ostriches.
|
