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If you’re considering hiking in the Avalon peninsula, you cannot do better than Brown Rabbit Cabins. I was there for a hiking trip in September, and after careful consultation every night Bill would recommend a trail for us to hike the next day. He would drop us off at the trail head in the morning and explain how and when he would pick us up at the end of the day. The hikes on the east coast trail were absolutely incredible! The scenery is breathtaking. Isabelle prepares hearty breakfasts so that you’re ready for the trails and she sent us on our way with nutritious and tasty bagged lunches. At 7 o’clock sharp every night there’s a wonderful dinner and lots of great conversation to be had. They were fine us bringing our own wine to the table. The rooms are comfortable, warm, safe. I highly recommend Brown Rabbit Cabins for your stay.
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Date of stay: September 2023Trip type: Travelled with friends
Room Tip: I don’t need to rent a car as Bill will pick you up in the city and drive you to the airport
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
We had an excellent stay with friendly, welcoming hosts Bill and Isabelle for our East Coast Trail hiking adventure. Isabelle provided exceptional meals and packed a perfect bagged lunch for us to take every day on the trail. Bill provided well considered guidance and drives to the areas best trails. Cabins are quaint and comfortable, with seemingly unlimited hot water to soak your sore bones after a long day of hiking. Highly recommend!
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Date of stay: September 2023Trip type: Travelled with friends
Room Tip:Â Listen to Bill for hiking tips. Trails can be dangerous!
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
A wonderful place to stay, if you like to hike and if you want to experience the calm and the majesty of the eastern coast of Newfoundland. Bill and Isabella are amazing hosts. Isabella cooks extraordinary meals, mostly ones that show off local flavors. Bill will find the right hike for you, given your physical condition and ambition. The cabins are well appointed and comfortable. You don’t need to have a car, since Bill will pick you up from St. John’s or the airport, and return you. We chose to rent a car, and as a result, we could take a few drives, including along the Irish loop around the Avalon Peninsula. Highly recommended.
They were not easy to reach, to make a reservation for the “walk along” for six days, but very much worth the effort.
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Date of stay: September 2023Trip type: Travelled as a couple
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Everything was fantastic The cabins were large and spotless and the beds were comfortable. The hosts Isabella and Bill were so friendly and helpful. Bill and Isabella picked us up at the airport and gave us great advice and transportation for the different hikes along the coast. Isabella was an amazing cook. All the meals were to die for. If you thinking about hiking in Newfoundland definitely do the walkabout at the Brown Rabbit.
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Date of stay: August 2022
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Trip type: Travelled with friends
Room Tip: Take Bill and Isabella’s advice about which hikes to do.
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
We stayed 3 nights mid June 2024. It was a lovely quiet cabin with many artistic and practical touches. We day hiked on the East Coast Trail near by, based on the host's recommendations, and also around Signal Hill in St. John's, less than an hour away.
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Date of stay: June 2024
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Trip type: Travelled as a couple
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
We stayed here for 5 days and hiked the Eastern Coast trails. Bill and Isabella were great hosts! Isabella made great home cooked meals and packed us lunches for the trail and Bill took us to the trails and picked us up. We appreciated their recommendations for trails and they didn’t disappoint. Our cabin was basic but comfortable. We highly recommend staying here!
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Date of stay: September 2021Trip type: Travelled as a couple
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
It's been awhile since I was here but Isha and Bill are amazing. Being given a moose steak; gratis that her husband had shot was amazing. everyone was so friendly and I am still in touch with people I met there.Lovely cabins,nice little kitchens and great location! Beautiful!!
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Date of stay: October 2019
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
If you are considering hiking on Newfoundland's East Coast Trail, Brown Rabbit Cabins offer a good option for accommodation. The property is in an excellent location for tackling the central and southern sections of the trail and lies near a lake not far from Tors Cove, about 45 minutes' drive south of St. John's.
We stayed for six nights in a one-bedroom cabin. Although basic, the cabin was warm and included a fully-equipped kitchen, a large seating area, and a small rustic bathroom. The double bed was very comfortable and the hot shower was welcome after a day's walking. Heating in the cabin is regulated by a simple thermostat and is highly effective which is invaluable when sweaty clothes and rain-soaked hiking gear need to be dried out. In addition to cabins like ours, there are some two-bedroomed cabins on the property which are going to be fully renovated by the family before the 2014 season.
All of the cabins lie within one minute's walk from the main building which contains the central kitchen and dining room where breakfast and dinner are served. As a result, it is the principle meeting place on the property. There is free internet available in the dining cabin, too. Food is generally simple but plentiful. A couple of dinners were rather plain but others were flavourful. A food highlight was being treated to some tasty moose hunted by the family. Alcohol for dinner times can be purchased at a local store. For hikers, the full-board option includes a basic packed lunch.
A main attraction of Brown Rabbit Cabins is the owners, their invaluable local knowledge and the services provided. Bill and Isabel are delightful hosts and are helped by their friendly grown sons Ivan and Dirk. They are all warm, down-to-earth people and will go out of their way to help each guest enjoy their stay. Chickens, a cute piglet and a sawmill give an indication of the self-sufficiency of this resourceful family.
Brown Rabbit Cabins is ideally set up for people like us who want to hike parts of the East Coast Trail. The weather, hikers' schedules and Bill's knowledge of the trails govern the best choice of each day's hiking. Don't worry, this is not group-hiking unless you want it to be. During our stay in the last week of August and start of September the main tourist season was almost over and for most of our time, there was just one other couple, from Switzerland, staying at the cabins. We enjoyed chatting with them during mealtimes. Towards the end of the week a family arrived as did a group of three hikers and the dining area became quite the gathering place. Largely, we could each choose our own hike and pace for each day. Bill will advise the most appropriate trails based upon the prevailing conditions. For example, trails with slippery exposed rocks and steep coastal hill sections are best done in good weather although some shorter sections can be tackled in changeable or rainy conditions. On two mornings, Bill recommended that we wait for downpours to blow over - not an easy thing for impatient city-folks to do but well worth it in the end.
Once the packed lunches had been collected, hikers piled into the minivan and Bill or one of the sons drove the groups to their respective starting points. He sometimes drove first to the end of the trail to show where he would pick us up. He also pointed out places to take shortcuts if needed. Bill was always just a cellphone call away and he'll come and pick you up if required.
In addition to Brown Rabbit offering to collect you from the airport and take you back there at the end of the trip, they'll also arrange to transfer you and your luggage to other accommodations. That is a very useful service and means that there is no need to rent a car.
We were surprised at the high cost of staying at Brown Rabbit since the property is quite remote and the cabins are basic. But when the costs of meals, transfers and trailhead shuttles are factored in, it becomes easier to justify.
One area for improvement is the bathroom in the cabin: It is small and outdated and the dark-coloured plastic shower curtain is of the type that migrates inwards. Replacing the curtain with one of a lighter colour that has weights along its bottom edge would improve the shower.
We recommend Brown Rabbit Cabins to anyone wishing to explore the beauty of the East Coast Trail. Bill, Isabel, Dirk and Ivan are lovely, caring hosts. Getting to or from the trailheads is easy with their minivan and after a day of hiking the cabins are cozy, the showers are hot, and the food is decent. The high cost of the stay is not too bad when one considers the services provided.
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Date of stay: August 2013
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Trip type: Travelled as a couple
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
I recently spent 5 nights at Brown Rabbit Cabins during late July 2012. My mom and I shared a private room, with two single beds and a private washroom for $60 a night, which is a fantastic price when travelling on a budget! It has a very relaxed atmosphere and the staff were also very friendly!! The room was clean, and the beds fairly comfortable. The door to our washroom didn't shut properly and we had to ask for fresh towels by the third day as they hadn't been replaced. There was a little gazebo in the yard out front of our room which was nice to sit and read in. The on-site restaurant has a fixed breakfast menu, and dinner was whatever the owner had an inkling to make that day. Being vegetarian, I did not opt to have dinner there as it was usually a meat based meal; although I didn't inquire as to whether or not an alternative meal could have been made for me as I felt it would have inconvenienced the cook.
The web-site for Brown Rabbit Cabins boasts canoe and paddle boat rentals as well as a Fresh Water beach. I was disappointed to learn that the canoe and paddle boats had not been used in years and in fact were apparently not in a safe usable condition. The "fresh water beach" was really a rocky shore of a lake that didn't look all that inviting for swimming, and on the walk down to the "beach" we were confronted by an angrily barking (off-leash) Rottweiler from one of the neighboring properties.
The location of Brown Rabbit Cabins, a 40 min drive from St.Johns, allows for exploration along the east coast of Newfoundland. Bay Bulls (which has excellent whale watching tours, O'Briens was the best) and Witless Bay are a short drive from the cabins. Ferryland and Cape Spears are a bit longer of a drive. Brown Rabbit Cabins is also located close to La Manch Provincial Park which apparently has waterfalls and beaches, though we did not have time to go there this trip.
I would recommend Brown Rabbit Cabins as somewhere to stay if you are traveling solo, with another or as a family/group!
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Date of stay: July 2012
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Trip type: Travelled with family
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
We highly recommend Brown Rabbit Cabins in Tors Cove, Newfoundland, to anyone planning a hiking trip on the East Coast Trail. We stayed there for 9 nine days in late June and early July 2011. We were very pleased with our choice of accommodation: the Brown Rabbit Cabins "Walkabout" package provided us with a double room with private bath (super quiet at night), all meals (including a good brown-bag lunch each day), all transportation (airport transfers and transportation to and from the trails, local towns and St. John’s), as well as lots of advice about the best trails to match our skill level and interests and about other activities in the area! They even made calls for us to arrange whale watching and kayaking tours. It worked out really well for us. Staying with them made the trip so easy. We basically had nothing to think about or do other than hike and enjoy ourselves – everything was taken care of for us. This is a family-run business, and Isa, Bill and their son Ivan were infallibly cheerful and helpful, and Isa is a wonderful cook and organizer!
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Date of stay: July 2011
Value
Cleanliness
Service
Sleep Quality
Trip type: Travelled with family
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
There are more places to choose from in the Witless Bay area.
LOCATION
CanadaNewfoundland and LabradorNewfoundlandWitless Bay
NUMBER OF ROOMS
7
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Frequently Asked Questions about Brown Rabbit Cabins
Which popular attractions are close to Brown Rabbit Cabins?
Nearby attractions include Witless Bay ecological reserve (1.0 km), Running the Goat Books & Broadsides (7.4 km), and Maxwell Morgan's River of Boats (0.07 km).
