NORTH QLD ADVENTURE - DAY 15 – FINISHING THE PARONELLA EXPERIENCE AND HEADING TO CAIRNS…

 We had book our day tour of Paronella Park for 9.30am this morning which meant that we had to leave the park by 9am and park the car and van in the front carpark so that we could make the tour on time.  Fortunately, it wasn’t too hard of a task to get ready as we hadn’t unpacked too much of our gear as we were only staying overnight.  We still managed a bit of a sleep in until 7.30am, got up had a quick breakfast of cereal and yoghurt and then it was all systems go to pack up and get morning….

The tour this morning was more to do with the history of Paronella Park.  The story behind it all is amazing.  Named after the creator Spaniard Jose Paronella, who started building it in 1930 after he immigrated here. He built 80 percent of the castle and surrounding buildings himself by hand. His vision is inspirational. He picked this place right beside the water so he could harness the waters energy and use it to run his castle, and it still does today. He first had electricity here in the mid 30s while the rest of the area was powerless till the mid 50s. People from around the area would come for many reasons. His castle included a ballroom, which he also used as a movie theatre, (decimated by 2 recent cyclones) a love tunnel, a picnic area, tennis courts and much more.

The tour started beside Jose's house which was in remarkably good shape, it's walls a bright yellow faded with time now houses the museum. He built the castle within a few meters, and the Ballroom with an ice creamery in behind it was the closest room. A window in the back wall was used to hand out the ice cream during movie nights. The ice cream fridges are still there to this day. The ballroom burned badly in a 1979 fire that some say was electrical failure others claim arson. There was a beautiful chandelier that was the centre piece made of hand carved crystal that was never found in the fire remains. Cyclone Larry ripped out one of the walls and also the whole projector room. 

From there we went down the Great Staircase. This 47-step staircase was the first thing completed on the property so Jose could bring all the building products up and down from the creek side. Everything he used was from there, even the concrete he mixed and put on the walls and pillars using his bare hands. You can see his finger prints to this day. Forty-seven steps doesn't seem to high but it is relatively steep. 

 

 

The bottom of the stairs led onto the picnic area right beside the pool under the falls. When you look at the falls on the right-hand side you can see the tower that houses the turbines. There are concrete / stone picnic tables and benches in strategic rows along the sandy shore with steps leading into the pool. Tourists could swim here till about ten years ago when a croc moved in.  

 

 

 

From here directly across from the grand staircase about eight to ten steps led up to the refreshment building. This building had change rooms built in on the north and south sides. Two double doors opened on the east and west sides so you can walk straight through. There is also an elegant water fountain that stretches the whole east side of the pavilion. You could also see the falls right through the castle building from the tennis courts on the far side of this fountain. The falls was the focal point and everything he build was so the falls could be seen. To the North was the kitchen in a building of its own. Both of the buildings had roof access for spectacular views.  This was to be where our tour finished this time.  

 

We moved on to explore the many other paths around the park, stopping at the creek to feed the squillion of fish and turtles down in the creek, then through the Bamboo Walk but probably our favourite part of the park was the walk through the Kauri Avenue.    This lane is planted with towering Kauri trees on both sides.  The trees tower not unlike cathedral spires in a sacred forest in their current almost 90-year-old state but will get even bigger as they are known to grow for hundreds of years and reach metres in width.  The condition Jose put these trees up with was that they would never be logged and that agreement is still on the property today. 

It was a little different to the last time we were here when we had a guide take us right through the park.  From here we were left to our own devices.  Armed with our map of the park we were off to explore the rest of the park.  There are areas that were accessible last time we visited but are no longer assess able this visit.  The Love Tunnel was one of these areas.  This 138ft tunnel was hand dug by Jose and two helpers and is now the home to a group of micro-bats.

We heard more about his grand plans for including an aquarium which he did build but had to close soon after as it was leaking. He even built a ticket booth in front of the tunnel for this aquarium.   When Jose broke out on the far side of the tunnel, he found another water fall, a small one, and named it after his daughter Teresa. Teresa said once that if anyone was looking for Jose and couldn't find him, he'd be here for sure.

From the Love tunnel we walked around it and crossed over the little bridge to check out Teresa’s waterfall.  Whilst crossing the little bridge, Steve spied a rather large eel that was living under the bridge.  He only came out when Steve threw some fish feed in to feed the little fish living in this little creek.    He was pretty massive….

Beautiful patterns in Nature

More beautiful patterns in Nature

Tressa Falls

Shadow leaf patterns

We spent quite a bit of time wandering around the park taking photos.  During our wandering we met up with another couple from Cairns who had previously done the night tour with us also.  We ended up at a picnic table near the Refreshment rooms chatting to them for a good hour or more all about our travels, as they were also avid travelers.  They were a lovely couple and to this day we still do not even know their names….

On our arrival back at registration, which also has a gift shop and a cafe with a huge covered deck, we decided to indulge in an ice-cream.  Steve was pretty disappointed that they did not have for him their signature Rum and Raisin ice cream.  It was by far the best Rum and Raisin ice cream he had tasted anywhere on our travels ever, and he was really looking forward to indulging in one again…    Instead, I had a raspberry gelato, made from fresh raspberries on site, and Steve indulged in a two flavoured cone of liquorice ice-cream and apple sorbet, both delicious, although I think he would have still preferred the Rum and Raisin. 

 

By now it was 1pm and probably time we made our way back to the car to continue our journey through to Cairns.

We only had just over 116kms to travel today until our destination at the Lake Placid Tourist Park in Cairns, so it was a relatively short and scenic drive past the ever-green cane fields with the mountain as a magnificent backdrop.

 We arrived at the van park before 3pm and started setting up for the week…  This meant we pulled a lot more of our gear out, all furniture out and for the first time these holidays, the television was unpacked also…

Whilst we were setting up, we got a surprise visit from our friends Fay and Chris (from Rocky).  They have been staying at this van park also but are leaving in the morning…

We had a good chat to them for more than an hour before they had to leave to go get ready to visit family for dinner…

We had a pretty relaxed evening… Steve watching a bit of television whilst I caught up on my journal writing…

We have nothing planned for tomorrow other that cleaning, washing, attending to mail and just chilling out getting a few jobs done that we haven’t had a chance to do.  It was till after 11pm before we crawled into bed…