March 2019 — yorkshirehayley.com

Canada: Cavendish and the Rotating House of North Rustico

A brief rest on the Robinsons Island walking circuit

Today was my last full day on Prince Edward Island and I had set it aside to explore the most popular part of Prince Edward Island National Park which incorporated Cavendish Beach and Green Gables.

A mock up of Green Gables in Prince Edward Island National Park

I started out at Green Gables as I thought this was the place that was likely to become busy later. It was only a few miles down the road from my rotating apartment, so I arrived just after opening time and the place was virtually empty.

Bridge in the “Haunted Wood” where LM Montgomery spent her childhood imagining the characters in her books

I started out by walking around the mock up of the Green Gables house. Green Gables is fictitious, but it was based on a house that really did exist and belonged to relatives of LM Montgomery. The house was not original. In fact, nothing from the time when LM Montgomery lived with her grandparents in the late 19^th century still exists. The foundations and a few stones are left of the original house, everywhere else has a sign proclaiming “here stood the house/school/post office where LM Montgomery lived/studied/worked”. You get the idea.

Cavendish - childhood home of LM Montgomery and headquarters of Prince Edward Island National Park — Cavendish – childhood home of LM Montgomery and headquarters of Prince Edward Island National Park

What did still exist was the woodland where LM Montgomery used to walk and use her imagination to think up creations and stories for her books. Lovers Lane and the Haunted Wood, as she named them, were still there. I walked along Lovers Lane and through the Haunted Wood and to a post office which was not part of the National Park, but instead was owned by the family of LM Montgomery and was the site where the house where she lived with her grandparents had been located.

In front of the old mansion at Dalvey-by-the-Sea

I then headed into the National Park to see the coastline and beaches which was mainly what the National Park protected and especially the sand dunes as I’d seen in Greenwich a few days earlier.

Entrance hall and staircase of the Dalvey Mansion — Entrance hall and staircase of the Dalvey mansion

I drove all the way out to Dalvey-by-the-Sea and saw the old mansion which was now a hotel. I went inside for a quick look, but decided not to stay to eat. Instead I went to park up to do the Bubbling Brook hike which took me to a disappointing, dirty looking pond which was neither worthy of a photo or a walk.

The old mansion at Dalvey-by-the-Sea is now a hotel

Much more rewarding was Robinsons Island and the 5km trail round the island. This was hugely enjoyable, the trail took in the woods and the coastline. There were 2 sets of red chairs in different locations along the trail, I set up my gorilla grip to take photos in both of them. The trail on Robinsons Island was for both hiker and cyclists, but they had to go round the trail in opposite directions and there were several sections with adventure obstacles for mountain bikers along the route. I didn’t meet any cyclists, I did meet some other hikers who had chosen to completely ignore the instructions about which direction they should be hiking the trail.

On my hugely enjoyable walk through the woods on Robinsons Island

After my enjoyable walk I arrived back at my car to find I’d been given a warning notice about not paying to be in the National Park. I had paid, I’d bought a National Park Annual Pass that very morning at Green Gables, however, I’d not displayed my pass in my windscreen as I’d showed it to staff at the booth at the Park entrance and believed that was sufficient. I spoke to rangers at the booth on the way out who said they would sort it out for me.

Beach and view on the Robinsons Island circuit

I drove down to Cavendish Beach parking area and walked over the sand dunes to get to the beach. I had seen plenty of beaches on Prince Edward Island now, so I was quite happy to drive back to the rotating house for a tour of the basement to see how it actually worked.

There are plenty of red chairs where you can rest and enjoy the view on Robinsons Island

The rotating house is called Around the Sea and is built on a steel disc that rotates 360 degrees one way and then back the other way. The ground floor of the house is divided into 4 apartments which take paying guests, the upper floor is where the owner and his family live.

As it was early in the season only 2 of the 4 apartments were occupied by tourists, me being one of them, so Steve had it rotating for a while and then stopped it with both occupied apartments facing out to sea. He said he needed to rotate it a bit more when all the apartments were full, so everyone had a turn of a sea view, but at the moment all guests had a permanent sea view.

Heading down for a stroll on Cavendish Beach, part of Prince Edward Island National Park

Steve explained that he wanted to build a round house, but had the idea of making it a rotating house after he had seen one on a holiday in Australia. This Australian house was made of steel. Steve had found a company called Daltec based in North Carolina who constructed round houses that were strong enough to withstand hurricanes. Unfortunately they told him that building a rotating house would not be possible. Undeterred, Steve had the steel disc for the house to sit on made in Australia and shipped over. He set the round house on top of the disc and had his rotating round house with a sea view on the northern shore of Prince Edward Island.

Expansive yellow sand beach along the Prince Edward Island coast at Cavendish

The house was completed in 2012 and is the only one that has apartments to rent. There are other rotating houses in the world, but they are privately owned and do not accept guests.

Around the Sea rotating house where I stayed in one of the ground floor apartments

Around the Sea is located on top of a hill, so even in fine weather it could be cold and windy and this June evening was no exception. However, before settling in for the night, I took the shortcut path down to the shore and had an hour long walk along the beach that I could see from my rotating apartment. The weather had acted as a good deterrent to keep everyone else off the beach tonight, so I had the place to myself.

View of the sea from my apartment in the rotating house

Tomorrow I would be leaving Prince Edward Island and exploring New Brunswick in the next part of my epic Canadian adventure.

Ever changing view from Around the Sea rotating house

I travelled around Atlantic Canada in June 2018.

See the Parks Canada website for more information on Prince Edward Island National Park. Fees are applicable all year round in the western section of the National Park, including Cavendish Beach and Robinsons Island. List of fees.

Green Gables Heritage Place is operated by Parks Canada and located in Cavendish and is open 9.00am to 5.00pm daily from May to October. Entrance fees apply and can be found on the website.

Bedroom in the apartment in the rotating house

I stayed in one of the four ground floor apartments in Around the Sea Rotating House located in North Rustico. You can book accommodation through Around the Sea Rotating House website. There is a minimum 2 night stay in low and shoulder season and a minimum weekly stay in high season. A complimentary tour of the house to see the rotating mechanism is included.

North Rustico is located on the northern shore of Prince Edward Island in the central part of the island making it an ideal base for exploring this island province. The town is located less than 5 minutes drive from one of the entrances to the western section of Prince Edward Island National Park. North Rustico is 32km from Charlottetown, approximately 30 minutes drive and the Confederation Bridge is 52km away, approximately 45 minutes by car.

The Confederation Bridge is the only way to reach Prince Edward Island by road. It is 12.9km or 8 miles long. A fee of $47.50 per car is charged when exiting Prince Edward Island to New Brunswick. There is no charge for crossing the bridge from New Brunswick to Prince Edward Island.

Read about my other adventures on Prince Edward Island.

North Cape Coastal Drive Part 1

North Cape Coastal Drive Part 2

Points East Coastal Drive

Charlottetown – Pocket Capital of Prince Edward Island

And check out more of my posts about Canada

Canada’s Medieval Castle

Canada: Saint John River Valley

Canada: Magnetic Hill and Fundy National Park

Canada: Quebec – Waterfalls, Via Ferrata and A Religious Theme Park

Canada: North Cape Coastal Trail Part 2

Playing the piano in one of the Bottle House rooms

I had spent a day driving around the western half of the North Cape Coastal Trail, today I was going to drive around the eastern half before heading to North Rustico to spend 2 nights on the north central coast of the island in a rotating house!

The rotating house was at the end of the day. The day began with a drive to Bideford. Scott, the West Point lighthouse manager recommended I go to Bideford to see the house where LM Montgomery lived for a year when she was a teacher in 1894. Scott had lived in the Dominican Republic and met a local called Shelly there and they had become the best of friends. Shelly had since moved to Canada and was in charge of the museum in Bideford. The wonderful Shelly gave me a personal tour of the house.

At the entrance of the Parsonage where LM Montgomery lived when she was a school mistress

LM Montgomery lived in the house in 1894 and 1895 when the house was a parsonage, but originally the house had been built by a shipping merchant. The house had passed into private hands in the 20^th century and been completely modernised. When the house came up for sale, again it was the community wanting to save their heritage, who bought the house to prevent it being sold and transported to Cavendish to be part of an Anne of Green Gables Avonlea style experience.

I was hugely impressed with the islanders and their commitment to preserving their local heritage. First the community at West Point had bought the lighthouse to preserve it and now I discovered the community of Bideford had bought the old parsonage to stop it becoming a building in a kind of theme park.

This was LM Montgomery’s bedroom when she boarded here in 1894 and has been reproduced to look as it would have done at the end of the 19th century

The Bideford community did have its work cut out when it purchased the property because it had been completely modernised. The community wanted to restore the parsonage as close as possible to the original house constructed by the shipping merchant, so they had to do some extensive research using photographs and documents.

The Parsonage of Bideford was purchased and restored by the community

They removed the upstairs bathroom and put it in the shed as there would have been no bathroom in the original house, but they had made one concession by putting in a toilet and wash basin in a downstairs room for museum staff. Whilst putting the bathroom in the shed, they found some old pickles in the shed. They had been placed on a shelf in the kitchen pantry as original. God knows what they tasted like. Pickling is obviously done to preserve food, but despite this process I would be surprised if the produce was still edible.

The pickles on this shelf were found in the shed when the house was being renovated

The stairs and bannister in the house had been replaced, the craftsmen had done a really good job replicating what they had seen in photographs and even the wallpaper was as close as possible to the original pattern and colour. They knew what the original wallpaper had been like as any new wallpaper had gone straight on top of the old wallpaper. When they were removing the old wallpaper, it was about 10 layers thick!

The tour took in the whole house, including the upstairs bedroom that would have been the one LM Montgomery stayed in and the rules for teachers was posted on the wall. They were very strict; you weren’t even allowed to enjoy an ice cream!

Very strict rules had to be followed by any ladies employed as school teachers

I was very close to Lennox Island, so I decided to make the detour there. Lennox Island has the only First Nations population on Prince Edward Island. It’s buzzing and there’s plenty going on in August around the time of the annual Pow Wow, in June it was extremely quiet. There wasn’t much there, a tiny cultural centre with a few exhibits and a craft shop.

I had expected Lennox Island to eat up a lot more of my time, as it was, it was still relatively early in the day and so I did what I’d said I wasn’t going to do and ended up driving the entire remainder of the North Cape Coastal circuit.

I was so pleased I did. It was well worth it. From West Point, down along the Acadian coast to Cap Egmont and on to Summerside was the most beautiful part of the Prince Edward Island coastline.

Bottles on the bar in the Bottle House bar

Lots of places were still closed up before the summer season got into full swing in a week or two, but I did go to Abram Village, an Acadian community with a few craft shops open. Ruby, my best friend in Canada, was going to become a grandmother in a few months and I’d known her daughter, Tysha, from when she was a baby. So I wanted to find something nice to send Tysha for her new baby and the craft shop had some beautiful, soft, hand knitted baby blankets. One in particular caught my eye, mostly white with pastel shades, but it was so soft. It was unique, handmade and perfect for baby Willa who now uses it all the time.

Bottles in a cabinet in a room made of bottles

I also had to visit the famous Cap Egmont Bottle House Museum. I find all the weird and wonderful museums. The idea for the bottle houses came from a postcard received from Vancouver Island of a glass castle and in 1980 Édouard Arsenault started collecting bottles to construct the bottle buildings at his home. Over 25,000 recycled bottles were cemented together to create a chapel, a house with a piano in it and a tavern. The chapel had pews made from bottles, the house had a bottle interior as well as exterior and the tavern had a bar with lots of bottles on it! There was also a model of the Cap Egmont Lighthouse in the garden, but that wasn’t made out of bottles.

It was a welcome attraction to break up the long drive, but even without the wonderful Bottle House Museum, that part of the coastal drive is so scenic, it would be worth doing anyway.

I called in at Summerside, Prince Edward Island’s second city and capital of Prince County. I had a brief walk into the city, had an ice cream and by now it was late enough for me to drive to North Rustico.

Miniature Cap Egmont Lighthouse with me next to it to illustrate the scale

I’d enjoyed the windy western Prince County immensely, now it was time to spend 48 hours in a rotating house by the sea!

I travelled around Atlantic Canada in June 2018.

Details of the 350km North Cape Coastal Drive including map and attractions can be found on the Prince Edward Island tourism website.

The Bideford Parsonage Museum is open daily from 9.00am to 5.00pm from June to beginning of October. Entrance costs $5.00. Bideford is located on the southerly section of the North Cape Coastal Drive 34km from Summerside and 47km from West Cape Lighthouse.

The Cap Egmont Bottle Houses attraction is open from mid May to mid October from 9.00am to 6.00pm. Entrance costs $8.00. The Bottle Houses are located at Cap Egmont on the south coast on southerly section of the North Cape Coastal Drive and 30km drive from Summerside.

Lennox Island Cultural Centre has interpretive displays about the Mi’kmaq community. Entrance is free. Guided tours are available for a fee. Lennox Island is located on the northern shore of the southerly section of the North Cape Coastal Drive, just 14km to the east of Bideford and 53km from Summerside.

Abram Village is a traditional Acadian community with craft shops and a venue for musical events which take place in high season. Abram Village is located on the southerly section of the North Cape Coastal Drive, 10km from Cap Egmont and 27km from Summerside.