Another busy few weeks for Arley and despite not having as many waterslides at his disposal compared to what he's become accustomed to, I think he's having a pretty okay time...
Tuesday, May 31, 2016
Monday, May 30, 2016
The Dream Continues: Paronella Park
Throughout our trip up north, fellow travellers kept mentioning a magical place just inland from Innisfail that we just had to add to our travel plans - Paronella Park. As we drove further north along the Bruce Highway, we saw signs advertising this place and picked up a brochure that said it was voted the #1 Must Do in QLD by the RACQ. How had we not heard of Paronella Park before?
We were told to phone ahead to book a spot at the on-site caravan park, and with just 20 places, we were lucky to get the last slab the night we were heading past. A bonus is that your powered site is free with entry into the gardens, and it makes it so much easier to do the night tours (especially with little ones) when you're staying right next door!
The story behind this place is beautiful and inspiring. The dream of Jose Paronella, who arrived in Australia in 1913 from Spain and made his fortune working hard in the sugar cane industry. In 1929, he bought 13 acres of scrub along Mena Creek because of its beautiful waterfall and started to hand-build his amazing gardens, complete with ballroom, movie theatre, cafes and his own family home. He planted over 7,000 trees, built bridges, tunnels and created the first Hydro electricity station in Queensland right there next to his waterfall. It's all quite amazing considering he did all of this by hand and with little help and also with a background not in landscaping, building, engineering or construction, but his training in Spain was as a pastry chef.
The park ran as a successful business with visitors coming from near and far to enjoy Jose's amazing creation, but sadly he died in 1948 of cancer, leaving his wife Margarita, son Joe and daughter Teresa to carry on his dream. The park was badly damaged in floods in 1967, '72 and '74 and after both Margarita and Joe died, the park was sold out of the family in 1977 and then in 1979, a fire swept through the Castle causing irreparable damage and closing the park to visitors for the first time. There were even more setbacks with three cyclones further damaging the gardens, but when Mark and Judy Evans, Victorians looking for a challenge, bought the park in 1993, they devised a plan to put the once beautiful park and one man's amazing vision back on the map. And they have done just that, restoring the old ruins and gardens and creating a museum and cafe/information centre on site.
Driving away from Paronella Park, I felt so inspired by Jose, one man with a dream to create something beautiful for everyone to share. It's terrific that his legacy has been restored by the current owners of the park and that the word is getting out about this wonderful place to visit in far north Queensland. It's made me a tad eager to get back home to my own garden and get my hands in the dirt!
We were told to phone ahead to book a spot at the on-site caravan park, and with just 20 places, we were lucky to get the last slab the night we were heading past. A bonus is that your powered site is free with entry into the gardens, and it makes it so much easier to do the night tours (especially with little ones) when you're staying right next door!
The story behind this place is beautiful and inspiring. The dream of Jose Paronella, who arrived in Australia in 1913 from Spain and made his fortune working hard in the sugar cane industry. In 1929, he bought 13 acres of scrub along Mena Creek because of its beautiful waterfall and started to hand-build his amazing gardens, complete with ballroom, movie theatre, cafes and his own family home. He planted over 7,000 trees, built bridges, tunnels and created the first Hydro electricity station in Queensland right there next to his waterfall. It's all quite amazing considering he did all of this by hand and with little help and also with a background not in landscaping, building, engineering or construction, but his training in Spain was as a pastry chef.
The park ran as a successful business with visitors coming from near and far to enjoy Jose's amazing creation, but sadly he died in 1948 of cancer, leaving his wife Margarita, son Joe and daughter Teresa to carry on his dream. The park was badly damaged in floods in 1967, '72 and '74 and after both Margarita and Joe died, the park was sold out of the family in 1977 and then in 1979, a fire swept through the Castle causing irreparable damage and closing the park to visitors for the first time. There were even more setbacks with three cyclones further damaging the gardens, but when Mark and Judy Evans, Victorians looking for a challenge, bought the park in 1993, they devised a plan to put the once beautiful park and one man's amazing vision back on the map. And they have done just that, restoring the old ruins and gardens and creating a museum and cafe/information centre on site.
We spent two terrific days exploring and marvelling at the amazing rainforest gardens, the Castles, the steep staircases, all made by hand. We also were lucky enough to see the amazing Mena Creek Falls in full flow, thanks to all the rain the area had seen in the past few days.
A highlight for us was the nighttime tour. The terrific guides kitted us out with umbrellas and torches and we took off into the dark to experience the beautiful gardens at night! We saw cane toads and thankfully no snakes, but Sage was amazed to see real life fairies flying amongst the rainforest canopy (Not Tinkerbell but fire flies our guide explained and they were truly magical to see) and Bastian was bewildered by a variety of glowing mushrooms that created tiny lights amongst the forest floor.
But by far the highlight for Arley in particular was being given a little container of fish food and directions to the turtle nesting area. Oh my goodness! We had never seen such a frenzy of fish, eels and turtles, all piling on top of each other, scampering for a taste of the food!
I also think Luke found the cascading waterfalls and tropical surrounds quite relaxing while he worked from the rainforest deck.... It still astounds me that he manages to balance his commitment to his business and his commitment to our holiday with incredible ease. If there's one thing this guy can do well, its multitask....!! If only his customers knew!!
Friday, May 27, 2016
Heading Into The Wet: Mission Beach and Tully
Driving north from Townsville and the countryside changes dramatically. It's about now that the sugar cane fields which are usually broken up with fairly dry paddocks of gums, with bushy gumtree spotted ranges in the distance, are now framed with lusher, denser vegetation. And then, as if all of a sudden, the mountains are covered in rainforest and it's clear that we are now truly in the tropics.
En route to Mission Beach, we stopped for lunch at a terrific spot - the Tyto Wetlands in Ingham. What an amazing surprise! This place was completely free and was such a great stop-over point on the Bruce Highway, just when the kids were getting wriggly. The wetlands are named after the endangered Eastern Grass Owl called the Tyto owl, which makes its nest on the ground and inhabits the Wetlands. There's a great interactive information centre where you can learn all about these unusual birds and the other creatures in this unique habitat. We also had fun exploring the boardwalks and feeding the tons of turtles with special fish pellets from the centre. A bonus is a beautiful cafe with great coffee, perfect to fuel up on before setting off on the next leg of our trip.
Luke and I had been excited about hitting Mission Beach since we started planning our trip. A truly beautiful and peaceful little town on the ocean, with palm tree lined streets and calm water beachfront, this little community is surrounded by world heritage rainforest on one side and world heritage reef on the other - it truly is where the forest meets the sea and the townspeople of Mission Beach are passionate about conservation and living in harmony with their gorgeous surrounds. The area is also famous for having the highest density of the endangered Cassowary in Australia. With all the road signs warning of these beautiful birds being out and about, we were hoping to spot one and were all pretty excited to come across a mum and a baby as they casually crossed the busy road as we drove into town!
There was one big difference to our visit to Mission Beach this time around... it began to rain as we drove into town and it continued to rain and rain and rain and RAIN!!! Locals said it was the wet season coming late, but it was a bit of a shock to the system for us, having now had no more than an hour or so of lousy drizzle of wet stuff since we embarked on this trip, some seven weeks ago!
And anyone with a caravan or tent or campertrailer can attest... it's not fun for anyone setting up camp in the rain... Except for the kids that is, and then they ended up in the puddles, then in the pool and flying down the playground slippery slide at tremendous speed, and they couldn't get over how amazingly fun this rain-stuff can be!
The next day we counted our blessings that only the corners of our mattresses were a tad soggy and as soon as there was a break in the weather, we hit the beach to assess the damage of the delude. The kids played for ages with the washed up drift wood and in the puddles and the rain proved just another chance to see Australia in all of its changing beauty and glory.
En route to Mission Beach, we stopped for lunch at a terrific spot - the Tyto Wetlands in Ingham. What an amazing surprise! This place was completely free and was such a great stop-over point on the Bruce Highway, just when the kids were getting wriggly. The wetlands are named after the endangered Eastern Grass Owl called the Tyto owl, which makes its nest on the ground and inhabits the Wetlands. There's a great interactive information centre where you can learn all about these unusual birds and the other creatures in this unique habitat. We also had fun exploring the boardwalks and feeding the tons of turtles with special fish pellets from the centre. A bonus is a beautiful cafe with great coffee, perfect to fuel up on before setting off on the next leg of our trip.
Luke and I had been excited about hitting Mission Beach since we started planning our trip. A truly beautiful and peaceful little town on the ocean, with palm tree lined streets and calm water beachfront, this little community is surrounded by world heritage rainforest on one side and world heritage reef on the other - it truly is where the forest meets the sea and the townspeople of Mission Beach are passionate about conservation and living in harmony with their gorgeous surrounds. The area is also famous for having the highest density of the endangered Cassowary in Australia. With all the road signs warning of these beautiful birds being out and about, we were hoping to spot one and were all pretty excited to come across a mum and a baby as they casually crossed the busy road as we drove into town!
There was one big difference to our visit to Mission Beach this time around... it began to rain as we drove into town and it continued to rain and rain and rain and RAIN!!! Locals said it was the wet season coming late, but it was a bit of a shock to the system for us, having now had no more than an hour or so of lousy drizzle of wet stuff since we embarked on this trip, some seven weeks ago!
And anyone with a caravan or tent or campertrailer can attest... it's not fun for anyone setting up camp in the rain... Except for the kids that is, and then they ended up in the puddles, then in the pool and flying down the playground slippery slide at tremendous speed, and they couldn't get over how amazingly fun this rain-stuff can be!
But the novelty wore off a tad when the rain continued and continued and got heavier and heavier. Later we found out we were camping in the biggest downpour that the area had seen in yonks and that nearby Cairns had just had more rain in a day than they had recorded since the 1930's!
The next day we counted our blessings that only the corners of our mattresses were a tad soggy and as soon as there was a break in the weather, we hit the beach to assess the damage of the delude. The kids played for ages with the washed up drift wood and in the puddles and the rain proved just another chance to see Australia in all of its changing beauty and glory.
More rain and a visit to nearby Tully was our attempt to avoid it. But if anyone knows anything about this quaint little sugar cane town, they know that its not just named after my little brother (the kids were super excited to visit their Uncle's 'town'!) but also that it is famous for being the wettest town in Australia, with an annual rainfall exceeding 4,000 millimetres. So in fact, instead of attempting to escape the rain on the coast, we drove into more rain at Tully! Raincoats on and the kids climbed the Golden Gumboot and we took a little drive around the town and were amazed to see the river was roaring - if we only had a couple of babysitters in tow, we may have found the nerve to join the other thrill seekers at Tully Gorge for some whitewater rafting fun! Next time...
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