Paronella Park

Wednesday 4th June – Bit of wetter weather as we drive up to Paronella Park – we are now in what’s considered the Wet Tropics, it’s such a contrast from the dry arid weather in the outback from just a few days ago.  We drive through Tully, famous for being the wettest place in Australia, it was raining of course as we drove through.  It’s also known  for being a major sugar producing area, this whole area is, miles and miles of sugar cane.  It’s the beginning of the harvest too, so the sugar cane is at full height, well over 2 metres tall and mostly in flower, which is a fluffy grassy looking tuft on the top!  All along the roadsides there are mini railway tracks which are used to transport the sugar cane from the fields in sugar cane trains to the processing plants.  Still it was a beautiful drive to Paronella Park through the sugar cane and banana plantations.

Paronella Park is now a heritage listed tourist attraction about 20km inland from Innisfail in the tiny locality of Mena Creek.    The Park has a small caravan park with only enough space for about 10 vans, plus a few cabins, I was glad we booked ahead and advised them of the size of our van, it was a bit tight but they gave us the only spot they that would fit our big rig!

The Caravan Park at Paronella Park

 

Once we were parked up and had a bite to eat, we headed off to have a tour of the park.  They start the tour by handing out umbrellas as they get a massive amount of wet weather here, we took one although we were currently seeing a bit of blue sky.

The guide takes you through the park and explains all about it’s history and origins along the way.  It’s quite an interesting little story about a Spanish guy called Jose Paronella who had a dream…

Everyone has a dream but not everyone’s dreams are fulfilled.  José Paronella’s dream was to build a castle and he chose a special part of Australia to create Paronella Park.  On 5 hectares beside Mena Creek Falls he built his castle, picnic area by the falls, tennis courts, bridges, a tunnel, and wrapped it up in an amazing range of 7,500 tropical plants and trees (now a lush rainforest!).  It cost a massive 30,000 pounds and opened to the public in 1935.  It is State and National Heritage listed and is now a National Trust listed property.

This magnificent waterfall flows like this all year round and is one of the features that attracted Jose Paronella to build his dream here.

 

One of the many amazing things that Jose Paronella built was Queensland’s 1st privately owned hydro electric plant.  The plant provided power for the whole property and after some expensive restoration a few years ago still does today!  Back in the 1940’s families didn’t have access to electricity, so this was quite unique and gave the family the opportunity to create an ice cream parlour as part of the attraction.  The Paronella family by all accounts seem to have been very enterprising and found many ways to make a living from visitors to the park.

The swing Bridge over the waterfall wasn’t part of the original park and was built much later, it provides a safe walkway over the waterfall to the pub!

 

One of the first things José built in the park was The Grand Staircase, as the park was built on such a slope, this was used to carry up materials with which to build the upper levels of the park.

The Grand Staircase

 

The water was in it’s day a popular swimming hole, the visitors were charged a fee to swim, and charged another fee to use the changing rooms!  Seems there is a resident crocodile in the pools now, didn’t see anyone swimming!

 

We were given some fish food with which to feed the fish and the turtles, which Maddy loved of course.  There were a massive number of fish, I reckon even Pete could have caught one of them if he’d been here with a rod!  What was interesting was that you were encouraged to stand right by the water here to feed the fish, right next to a huge sign warning of the crocodile that lived here too….

Feeding the Fish and Turtles (which in turn feed the resident croc!)

 

The Hungry Turtles

 

There are so many different areas to explore in this fascinating place, these trees would have been planted when José first built the park, they are Kauri trees and now stand extremely tall and proud.  The guide told us that when José was given those trees it was on the condition that he would never cut them down!

The Magnificent Kauri Trees  – Paronella Park

 

The original house that José built and in which the family lived in during their entire time at the park is now a small museum with photo’s and bits and pieces recovered from the site.  Maddy found this lovely hat, I wonder if it was José’s?

 

The lower refreshment rooms were used to house a café and restaurant and was another example of how the Paronella Family would have used the park to provide an income.  It is now one of the most beautiful photographic buildings in the park.

The “Lower Refreshment Rooms” at Paronella Park

 

In front of the cafe José built a beautiful pond full of lilies, with fountains which are powered by the waterfall and run constantly day and night.

 

Sadly José died of cancer in 1948, he didn’t have long to appreciate his park!  The property stayed in the Paronella family until 1977 but due to a combination of cyclones and floods and the deaths of the mother and both children it became too hard for the grandchildren to maintain and was eventually sold.  It is now privately owned and operated.

One of the things I found quite interesting was that Paronella Park was actually only about 20 years older then our house back in Forestville! Our house is also hand built, just like this place, out of the rocks that were found in the ground, on a slope, by a guy who had a dream, and totally by hand. What a strange coincidence, although when you compare the two, there really are few comparisons, especially now that we have renovated our place.  Paronella Park gives you impression of something that’s hundreds of years old, yet is really only quite young at just less than 80 years old!

After exploring the park for a few hours, without even getting wet,  we headed back to the caravan for a rest and to change before heading back for the night tour at 6pm.  For the night tour they provide you with torches (and umbrellas) then take you back through the park to see everything beautifully lit up, it all looks quite different at night.

The Waterfall

 

The grand finalé of the night tour was at the lower refreshment rooms. It wasn’t lit up when we arrived at this part of the park, we all lined up on the grass and the guide started a light show with music.  We were all quite spellbound, it really brought the magic of the park to life for everyone.

The Grand Finale

 

It was 7pm when we finished the tour, so we dashed over to the Mena Creek pub just down the road for dinner.  We’d heard the meals were good and they were excellent!  Steak of course featured heavily on the menu, as did chicken schnitzel, it’s an Australian pub thing… I managed to find myself a great salad though and Drew had an awesome steak, Maddy got her favourite fish and chips, so we were all happy!

The Pub at Mena Creek

 

Thursday 5th June – Bit of rain overnight but we managed to pack up without getting too dreadfully wet and headed off before 9am.  Destination for today Port Douglas, very excited about that!  We had wanted to stay at the beautiful Palm Cove just north of Cairns but it was all booked up due to the Iron Man event on this weekend, so Port Douglas it was with a pool with a water slide for Maddy to look forward to.