Tidepools, teacups and a treehouse on Canada’s Vancouver Island

Our excitement built as the ferry MV Coho turned into the harbor of Victoria, British Columbia, the hub of Vancouver Island. Colorful houseboats lined the shore, and a water taxi motored behind us. As we docked, our rental vehicle clunked onto Canadian land.

Within three minutes, we stopped in traffic alongside the iconic Fairmont Empress Hotel. The chateau-style building has served a famed afternoon tea since it opened in 1908. It tempted us mightily, but my husband, Bob, and I were six hours early.

A word of advice: Don’t dawdle in making your international ferry reservation from Black Ball Ferry Line, or you’ll be departing Port Angeles, Wash., at the crack of dawn.

We’d battled poor timing issues on this late-July trip that began on Washington state’s Olympic Peninsula and Olympic National Park. Logging more than 400 miles in a few days, we’d dodged rain that obliterated mountain views, and we completely missed the Hoh Rainforest with its verdant Hall of Mosses Trail, which we expected to be a trip highlight.

(Another lesson learned: If you can’t reach the Hoh visitor center parking lot by 8 a.m. — a big ask when your lodging is two hours away — you may face a two-hour line of traffic waiting for a spot. The need for a bathroom tanked our plans to hike the epic trail.)

Finally on Vancouver Island, we hoped to ditch the national park crowds, relax for a few days and reclaim our groove. Fortunately, blue skies followed us to Butchart Gardens.

“OK, now face the wall and don’t look left,” said our guide as we climbed steps that would overlook Butchart’s Sunken Garden, at the national historic site about 12 miles north of Victoria. She pointed to an early-1900s photo of bleak lime quarry that fed Canada’s growing need for cement but left a deep, carved-out bowl in the land.

Once her husband had made a fortune with the quarry, Jennie Butchart seeded their legacy by collecting plants and a landscape crew and dangling herself in a bosun’s chair to tuck ivy into crevices of quarry walls that cradle the Sunken Garden.

Her vision and tenacity took the City Beautiful movement to the extreme over three decades, creating an international attraction sprawling 55 acres and drawing more than a million visitors a year. A cadence of foreign languages flowed past a carousel, a field of wildflowers and Indigenous totem poles, and circled through a rose garden. Shaded ponds with water lilies and lush landscapes added to the Japanese Garden’s serenity and a glimmering blue glimpse of Tod Inlet.

At the Butchart historic home now used as a restaurant, we finally found our idyllic spot to experience a proper tea. With pinkies playfully pointed up, we lifted cups steaming with the fragrance of berries and currants, bergamot and rhubarb.

A waitress set a three-tiered silver tray onto the white tablecloth. We marveled at the tiny bites of English trifle, sausage puff pastry, egg tart, finger sandwiches, chocolate torte, carrot cake, lemon mousse and a chocolate truffle.

The artful presentation begged for mindful eating to savor each ingredient in the cool shade of the porch overlooking the Italian Garden.

The temperate forest formed a canopy over local roads winding past inlets and stands offering honor-system mushrooms, flower bouquets and produce for sale. We spent a day at East Sooke Regional Park with its beach strolls, picnic spots and a wooded hike to coastal petroglyphs.

A dense school of minnows shimmered and darted near a rocky outcrop, while an orange-beaked oystercatcher squawked at gulls. A harbor seal surfaced and glanced our way, while salmon-fishing boats buzzed along the Salish Sea. A few distant glaciers shone white atop the purple Olympic Mountains layered hazily across the horizon.

On our last full day, we rose early to catch low tide at Botanical Beach. Here, spherical potholes scoured into ledges of sandstone and granite create a unique assortment of tidepools. The area’s rich biodiversity led pioneering professor Josephine Tilden to set up a University of Minnesota Seaside Station for conducting research from 1901-1907.

Modern visitors follow a 1.5-mile trail through Sitka spruce and red cedars to clear shoreline pools. The pools brim with purple sea urchins, luminous green sea anemones, white gooseneck barnacles, blue mussels, sea lettuce, rockweed, limpets, a few chitons and small crabs. Two sea stars, purple and ochre, clung to rocks where foamy waves washed in and out.

Tidepooling demands watching your feet to avoid hazards. The sea likewise requires attention as waves bounce back from low tide. We shaded our eyes to watch as several humpback whales breached offshore. Down the beach, harbor seals rested on a rock island, occasionally dipping into the undulating kelp bed below.

Victoria’s Royal British Columbia Museum covers more than 500 million years of natural and human history on Vancouver Island and the province (royalbcmuseum.bc.ca).

The 105-foot-tall spiral tower Malahat Skywalk leads travelers above the forest with views of the Saanich Inlet. A slide spins people back to the bottom in seconds (malahatskywalk.com).

To get closer to the whale population, outfitters such as the Prince of Whales run cruises that also watch for dolphins and otters (princeofwhales.com).

Bring an appetite to Victoria’s Chinatown National Historic Site, marked by stone lions and an elaborate gate. North America’s second-oldest Chinatown (behind San Francisco) features colorful streets and brick-alley labyrinths brightened by paper lanterns, umbrellas and fresh produce. Cafes and bakeries emanate the sweet smells of steamed buns filled with red bean paste, warm custard tarts and savory noodle bowls.

Travelers can find a variety of accommodations with views of the sea or tucked into the trees. Our treehouse rental was through Airbnb (vancouverisland.travel).