Paronella Park

Hello to everyone again!

On Thursday 7^th November, we stayed at Paronella Park. This is another place we had on our list of must do’s and it was even more wonderful than I had imagined. It was built in the 1930’s by a Spaniard called Jose Paronella. His dream was to build a Spanish Castle and a place where people could come and relax. When he arrived in Qld in he worked extremely hard buying, improving and selling cane farms around the Innisfail area to make money. Cane cutting in those days was dreadfully backbreaking work and all done by hand. The canecutters battled heat, humidity, drenching rain, insects, snakes, rats and diseases, rashes from the plants and had very basic accommodation. Their main diet was corned beef and damper. Jose came across Mena Creek Falls, a gorgeous part of the rainforest up here, fell in love with the area and decided it would be a fabulous place to create his dream. He purchased the land adjoining a neighbouring cane farm for 120 pounds. There is a great deal more to his story but it would take me ages to tell you, so if you are interested go to www.paronellapark.com.au to learn so much more about Jose and how he made his dream of a castle in the rainforest come true. It is really well worth looking at, and if you ever come up this way, be sure to visit Paronella Park. You will be taken back in time and spellbound by the magical feeling of this truly beautiful creation that one man dreamt of and managed to create and achieve through his labour of love, despite incredible adversity, heat, the wet seasons, floods, and cyclones.

The cost was $80 which included 1 overnight stay in the caravan park on the grounds, a day tour, a night tour, unlimited time to walk around and explore, plus 3 hrs of Wi Fi internet access. It was worth every cent and a fantastic deal!

The tours are a wealth of information, and the tour guides are great people. We found the whole experience a lot of fun. The day tour gives you such an insight into the amazing dream and creation of Jose. We had to use umbrellas while walking around the denser trees due to the millions of fruit bats – you have to be careful and dodge them because apparently their poo is incredibly sticky! Mark thought our tour guide said share one umbrella between two – he obviously wasn’t listening, because everyone else had an umbrella each! So me being me with the camera, I kept walking off to take my photos, forgetting about the bats! I was lucky, no bat poo on me! The night tour was kind of spooky while walking around in the rainforest at night with a torch, strange and eerie noises coming at you, but most certainly a new experience for us! There is a great deal of beautiful emotional energy here, and I became a little teary a few times. The staff say they feel it also and people we did the tours with said the same thing. It left a huge impression on us that will stay with us for a very long time.

I hope you enjoy these photos!

Mark & Lil & Millie

xox

Our site at Paronella Park

View from the Suspension Bridge over Mena Creek Falls - 'The Castle' left and the 'Picnic Area' below

View from the 'Picnic Area' looking up to the Suspension Bridge and Mena Creek Falls. The rock in front of the balustrade used to have a diving platform on it. The building on tall pillars to the right houses the Hydro Electric Plant. The catastrophic 1946 floods came up above the cliff face, washing away the Top Gardens in front of the Paronella family's cottage and a tree crashed into the Hydro Electric Plant damaging the entire system.

Photos of the 1946 floods - How heartbreaking!

On our Night Tour

The Grand Staircase - 47 steps! Jose built this first so that building materials could be taken up or down. If you look very closely, you will see 2 of the steps have plaques depicting flood levels. There is a 3rd plaque behind the fern. 

View from the top of 'The Grand Staircase' It's a very steep descent! The planters were hand moulded by Jose and he made 500 of them!

'The Lower Refreshment Rooms' - to the right is the balcony where Jazz musicians played. Where I am standing is part of the dance area and tennis courts. The fern next to the balcony was looked at by a team from Gardening Australia and estimated to be 800 years old!!

Lit up for the Night Tour - music was playing which added to the feeling of stepping back in time and imagining the Jazz musicians playing, people dancing and eating and having a marvellous time!

Kauri Avenue - a spectacular sight to see and walk through. All the Kauri Pines here were planted by the Paronella family from seeds they were given and then grown into seedlings before being planted.

The front entrance to 'The Tunnel of Love' - Jose used a hand pick to remove the clay for building purposes. The back entrance is next to Teresa Creek Falls.

The rear entrance to the Tunnel. Our tour guide took people through. Mark went in - I chose not to. The guide said it was full of Microbats AND lots of spiders on the walls! No lights in there!! NO WAY MAN!!!

'The Ballroom' - this is joined to 'The Castle'. This was used for dances, weddings and film nights. Jose had a huge mirrored ball made in America that hung from the ceiling. The Ballroom was damaged by the 1946 floods, a fire also swept through and more recently, Cyclone Yasi in 2011. 

Yep, apparently this big boy lives here on the property!! YIKES!! The staff see him all the time!!