Paronella Castle ruins
Paronella Park is indeed special. José Paronella a very energetic Spaniard came to cut cane in Queensland, made some money, bought a run-down sugar farm, built it up and sold at a profit, repeated that formula until he was very very rich, went home to find that his fiancée had married another (he had not written in 12 years), married the younger sister, toured Europe looking at gardens and castles, came back to Australia in 1929 and bought 30 acres of rainforest with two waterfalls next to a road. Over the next few years he and his wife built Paronella Park. He used the major waterfall to power a hydro electric generator that has been restored and now generates more power than the complex requires so feed some into the grid.
The Main Falls at Paronella Park
The building that houses the generator
The castle he built had all the trappings of a castle including a ballroom with a huge mirrored ball and a stage for visiting entertainers. There were fountains flowing from cleverly channelled waterfall water, a swimming and rowing pond with ‘pet’ fish, turtles and eels, tennis courts, picnic tables and refreshment rooms, change areas, delightful walks in the forest and marvellous vistas of the waterfalls.
The top of the castle
The back of the castle and the fountain
Close-up of the lilly pond and fountain
The fish and Tortoises line up to be fed
Mircobats in the park
He hand-dug a long ditch and recovered it to form a tunnel, complete with ticket office, to bring people from one area to a small freshwater spring fed second waterfall which he had named after his daughter,Teresa.
This waterfall provided hot and cold running water and flushing toilets in his house. The tunnel was intended as a huge aquarium but when that proved unfeasible he grew mushrooms which were sold at local markets. Unfortunately he used the local sand in his concrete and the high silica content attracted water which rusted the metal of the railway line he used in his suspended floors, roofs and columns hence there is a tremendous problem of concrete cancer that will slowly destroy what is left by the fires, years of neglect by previous owners and the climatic incidents such as cyclone Larry. Although even Larry had a benefit in that it knocked down a huge old tree that had grown to interrupt one of the lines of sight of the waterfall through the ground-floor arches of the castle.
Teresa Falls
An avenue of Kauri Trees planted by Jose that provides a vista back to the waterfall
Another avenue affording a view to the waterfall
The swimming area and the outdoor dining area
One of our guides at Paronella Park is a local and his enthusiasm for the place clashes with that of his grandmother who came there frequently as a girl and a young woman. The grandmother remembers the park and the Paronella family in their glory. It is at once sad to see the decay and uplifting to listen to the people enjoying and marvelling at this wonderful place so effectively brought to life by the people who work there.
If you would like to see more of Paronella Park, here is a link: http://www.paronellapark.com.au/index.html
We were fortunate to capture a number of unusual birds on film while we were there:
Forest Kingfisher
catbird - difficult to catch on film - so fast.
Metallic starlings
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