Butterfly Gardens

If you’re looking to get away from campus on a rainy day when outdoor gardens and the ocean is out of the picture, the perfect place to go is the Victoria Butterfly Gardens.

Here you will find peace and quiet, along with beautiful flowers that burst with colour and life, trees that filter the light until it is soft and dances of the never-ending colours of flower petals and the delicate wings of the iridescent butterflies.

The air feels like a humid summer day and the sounds of rippling waterfalls echoes through the enclosure along with the calls of the parrots that fly above head. Here you can sit and watch the butterflies dance from flower to flower, wings fluttering to keep them aloft, and scales glinting in the soft light.

If you sit very still you may be lucky enough to have a butterfly rest on you on its way to the next flower. I was fortunate enough to make friends with a very curious parrot who wanted its head scratched.

I spent hours wandering through the enclosure and with each pass I was greeted with something new, whether a parrot, butterfly, or plant my eyes were never disappointed with what they saw. The colours are so vibrant and tropical which was a stark difference from the chilly rain that poured outside.

Going to the butterfly gardens in the early morning is the best time because there is a fresh hatch and the butterflies are the most active then. There also tends to be fewer children around.

If you are anything like me, I always fear for the safety of all the animals when there are children near. Once the children started showing up in the afternoon I did one quick loop around and gently rescued all the butterflies that were near death and laying on the ground unable to fly, I placed them all on the butterfly feeding bar, so they could eat in safety.