Alan & Lyn's Huge Adventure: Up the road to ruin

Yesterdays blog delayed due to no internet - but here it is .

Cardwell is now in the rear vision mirror as we head northwards towards Silkwood , that will be our turnoff to head out to Mena Creek Hotel - todays destination - all of 80 klms from Cardwell .

We left at 9:40 and arrived at 11:20 , setting up in the back paddock beside the hotel . It was nearly noon , so we went to the hotel and had some lunch - you can stay for free , if you have a meal or some drinks .

We decided to have our main meal for the day at lunchtime - Lyn had Caesar salad with chicken tender loins and I had a rump steak , both meals were a good size without being too much . The garlic bread was probably a bit too much , but hell we enjoyed it !!!

Lunch done , we headed down the road about 300 m to a suspension bridge over the top of Mena Creek . The added bonus was the waterfall underneath it !!

We bounced our way across the bridge to Paronella Park , payed our admission and waited for our tour to start . The guide came and started talking about Jose Paronella - a Spanish gentleman who had a dream , he was a self made man , quite rich for the time , and started to build his Spanish Castle right beside Mena Creek . He worked at many jobs , before buying and selling properties , running sugar cane cutter gangs and owning other businesses . He travelled the world , but couldn’t find anything better than what was in Queensland . Without giving you the whole history , he came back to Australia and built his castle / entertainment park in the 1930’s. Many people used the facilities , there were balls , movies , swimming & boating in the creek , tennis , bocce , refreshment rooms and a museum . People would get married here .

Jose planted over 7000 trees on the site , there are bamboo groves , an avenue of Kauri pines that are 80 years old , walking tracks , an upper castle and lower castle , tunnel of love and many surprises hidden at all corners of the 13 acre property .

The guide took us down to the swimming area below the falls and fed some fish - some fish !!! , there were hundreds , and all big enough to feed two people easily . There were black bream , catfish , eels , and perch , not to mention the turtles as well .

The park has survived many disasters in the shape of flooding , cyclones & fire , but the ravages of time are taking its toll , with concrete cancer now taking hold . Many of the building materials were taken from the site - sand for the cementing & clay for rendering . Unfortunately the sand has mica in it and that causes concrete cancer !!

There we are !!!

We finished the tour and were left to our own devices for as long as we wanted .

There was a shower of rain after we had come back up to the reception area , so we sat and waited till it cleared .

After about three hours , we headed back to the RV for a drink & a relax before we head back for the night tour .

How many turtles can you see ?

Back for the night tour , and it hasn’t rained - that’s good . They give out torches and suggest we take umbrellas ( they supply them ) and we follow the guide back through to the main castle & Mena Creek Falls - they have a lot of the ruins and falls floodlit - and it looks great , very different to day time . Theresa Falls is the next spot to visit ( a miniature version of Mena Creek Falls ) , then we went to the bamboo grove and turned all the torches out . Because we had some rain this afternoon , the small mushrooms tend to glow in the dark - something to do with phosphorous and being wet , so did some of the bamboo on the ground - quite amazing !!!

Back to the small castle , where they have some music playing and lights slowly coming on , there is also the fountain ( that is fed from the falls and not pumped ) that’s lit up .

Back to Mena Creek Falls for some more photos & time to take it all in - this walk has been more about enjoyment rather than history , and before long our hour was up .