Atherton to Airlie Beach:

We made our way south through the small sleepy mountain towns of the tablelands region only stopping when a brown sign presented itself.  Due to the mountains and the high rainfall in this part of Australia (one town even proclaimed to be the wettest in Australia) the area was graced with a large number of waterfalls.  We took a small detour just after a town called Millaa Millaa to follow a tourist drive which gave access to three incredible waterfalls all cascading into deep ravines and valleys.

After taking lots of photos, each trying to out do the other in the “I‘ve got the best shot of the waterfall” competition, we returned to highway 25 and headed back towards the coast.  One of the things that’s great about travelling with no real plan or set agenda is finding the unexpected!  As we drove along the road we saw signs for Paronella Park which on arrival looked like a ancient crumbling castle that had been overtaken by the jungle.  As it was on the way we decided to pop in and see what it was all about but with the provision that if it was too expensive or looked like a dead duck we would not bother going in.

As we wandered towards the entrance we were approached by a tall man, wearing a khaki coloured outfit much like a old fashioned jungle explorer would wear.  He proceeded to ask us where we were from and had we been sent here?  We responded by explaining we had just happened upon the place and no sooner had we finished saying this (it was like we had given him a green light for go) he launched into an enthusiastic tirade telling us all about the place.  Not surprisingly thinking this was just a sales pitch we thanked him for his time and went to have a look in the gift shop.  As we walked away he said that there was no pressure to go in, but he would give us a discount as we had found the place by accident and a guarantee that if we didn’t enjoy it he would give us our money back.  With that in our minds we thought, what the hell, why not! 

We decided to join a guided tour to get the best out of this eclectic place and find out more about its history.  Paronella Park was built by Jose Paronella in the 1930’s.  Jose was a Spanish immigrant who initially came to Australia to make his fortune before returning to Spain to marry his arranged partner.  He was a pastry chef by trade but came to this region to cut sugarcane.  After a few years he had collected enough money to buy a small farm that the original owners had failed to make work and within a relatively short period of time he had managed to successfully turn the farm around and he went on to sell it for a healthy profit.  Realising that this was the way to make money he bought another failing farm, turned it around and sold it on.  After 12 farms he was extremely rich and felt he was now wealthy enough to return to Spain to marry his arranged partner, but she had got bored of waiting and had married someone else in the meantime.  Not wanting to go back to Australia empty handed he married her sister instead, a moral to us all I think!

During his travels looking for farms he came across the plot of land where Paronella Park now stands which was situated next to the highway and had its very own waterfall. 

Usually this would be ideal land for sugarcane, but it was too rocky to plant crops and so he was able to purchase it for a very small sum.  However, crop planting was not what he had in mind.  Ever since he was a child he was told stories by his grandmother about people who lived in a castle, but it was always made clear that this was only for the rich and wealthy people.  It soon became his dream to one day build his own castle, but most importantly, rather than it just being for wealthy people he wanted everyone to be able to enjoy it.  So that’s what he did.  As it was next to the highway people would stop and marvel at this castle in the jungle and at the same time come to enjoy the home made ice cream, cream teas and bath in the pool at the bottom of the waterfall.

After a number of years of backbreaking work he had built a home for him and his family, the castle, a ball room which was also used as a cinema, a staircase down to a tropical garden lined with trees and exotic plants, tennis courts, changing rooms, a second castle which was a restaurant and also somehow found time to build Australia’s first Hydro Electric generator powering the place as well as the refrigerators for the ice cream.  All this, pretty much built by his own hand and don’t forget in the 1930’s so no modern engineering techniques at hand.  He had removed so much mud and sand from one area of his land to build all this that he had inadvertently created a tunnel which he then tried to line with tropical fish tanks but he had to abandon the idea due to too much water leeching from the tunnel walls.

On the buildings you could actually see the finger marks where Jose had smeared the render on to the wall by hand.  Unfortunately, due to the high salt content in the sand he used from the creek and the numerous tropical storms that have devastated this region over the years, most of the buildings had either partly collapsed or were in the advanced stages of decay.

The tour was a fascinating story of how one man can realise his dreams, and even thought he was clearly a little eccentric, the story of what he did and how he did it was very inspiring.  During the tour we also found out that the enthusiastic man at the entrance was the new owner who had bought the place in the late 90’s after it had been abandoned for 18 years.  Ironically this was not a brown sign experience and was completely privately owned and run, meaning it will only survive with visitor contributions and by word of mouth, hence his desire to ensure the experience would be a good one for us.  It was and worth every penny.

After our unexpected stop, we eventually made it to our overnight campsite just north of Mission Beach at Bingil Bay.  The site was another low cost camping option this time owned by the local council and came to the princely sum of $10, which included a hot shower this time.  The campsite was small only allowing 15 vans at most but was basically right on the beach, giving us another million dollar view for the night.

The next day I awoke to a pinch and a punch (why does she always remember?!) as it was the first of September.  It suddenly dawned on us both that our journey was coming to an end and that we only had a few weeks left in Australia before reaching New Zealand and then it would be all too soon before we would be coming home to the run up to Christmas.  Time seems to be flying with it feeling like only yesterday that we stepped off the plane in Tokyo.  Australia has been a whirlwind and we are loving this place so much that we wish we could keep going and join the East and West with another epic road trip…another time me thinks.
We headed south to Townsville but on the way we decided to take a detour from the road to visit Australia’s highest waterfall, Wallaman Falls.  The detour would be a massive 100km off our route and so had to have the wow factor to make it worth our while.  We felt it was going to be.  We followed the signs and the road soon became a single track as it made its way up the mountain.  As the road gained height it started to twist and turn as it followed the contours of the mountain.  Some 10 kms before reaching the top, the tarmac ran out and the road turned into another off road beauty with a clay like surface and lots of very big pot holes.  The rain had started just before we began the ascent and it looked like it had set in for the day.  The very close and foreboding looking rainforest that now lined the clay road seemed to hold the clouds in place making it look misty and quite eerie.  We finally reached the Falls car park after an hours drive and we were excited to get to see this 300m free fall waterfall.  With anticipation in our hearts we rushed to the observation deck and looked out over the barrier.  There, in our sights was……nothing but thick white cloud.  We could hear the roar of the water as it fell over the cliff and hit the bottom of the valley, but we saw absolutely nothing !!!!!!!!!  The picture on the sign looked good though!!!!!!

We did think about hiking down to the base of the falls as there was a path, but it was very steep and wet and already feeling disillusioned we did not want to run the risk of getting down there only to see more cloud.  That would probably be the final straw!  So, with no other choice, we turned the van around and made the long and bumpy descent back to the bottom and back to the main road.  As we left the mountains and returned to the flat expanses of farming land that sit close to the coast, the sun came out and the rain stopped.  After a number of expletives from Emma along the lines of “bleeding typical”, we looked back at where we had been only to see the clouds remaining in place, seemingly trapped by the mountains.  Just as well!

Next: Airlie Beach and the Whitsundays.