dear reader, i really really hope you like ... no, you _love_ butterflies and flowers (maybe even as much as nina does?), because if not, you better skip this day's entry right after the next paragraph - because butterflies and flowers is what it's all about today. usually "nomen est omen" we assumed, when stopping at the "beaver lake" with the adjoining "elk lake", because i would have been fine with either one of them. but no, neither elk nor beaver was there - so disappointing, so sad. and so we drove on to the butterfly gardens. well butterfly gardens[006-102] is - of course - all about butterflies. and there are lots of them. approximately 4000 butterflies are living in this ca. 1000 square km big glass house. so there's movement everywhere, and you have to tread carefully, as the butterflies are even on the ground. while some of them sit and rest so one can easily take pictures, others never seem to rest. and of course those ones are the most beautiful ones. but there's also more than 200 plants for the butterflies to land on, eat from, and lay their eggs on. they even had carnivorous plants. once you get used to the humidity and temperature inside, it is really a nice place full of lovely colourful butterflies, bizarre looking caterpillars, loud parrots, cute tortoises and geckos, and even more cute, colourful and poisonous frogs and toads. next stop, after having a burger in a family restaurant right opposite of the butterfly gardens, was the national historic site of the butchart gardens[103-222], a huge garden built in 1920, after the site was used as a limestone quarry by the butchart family. then, step by step more and more themed garden segments, like a rose garden, a japanese, garden, an italian garden, etc., were added. then, every few decades new stuff was added, like lights for night illumination, or a huge fountain, or totem poles, and more... the sun already started to set, when we came to an open area where a concert (by ruth moody and band) was about to take place soon. so we sat down, rested a bit, and listened to the music. we did not notice it got already pretty late, and this night we had booked a bed & breakfast, which usually means the people hosting, have to stay up until the guest arrives. so we gave a call, and headed to nanaimo, which is a two hours drive (125km) to the "island view b&b". that is where we spotted some deer running around in the gardens, and a dead racoon. poor little procyon. track for day 06.