A Dream Comes To Life

PARONELLA PARK Back in 1935 a Spaniard, Jose Paronella built a castle with ballroom that transformed into a movie theatre, 2 tennis courts and a picnic area beside the water on 13 acres beside Mena Creek falls, he even generated power from the water falls, pretty unique when other homes in the area did not get power until 1952.

The castle has been destroyed by fire, damaged by floods and devastated by cyclone Larry but the grounds and property is still open to the public after some fellow ‘caravaners” in 1993 called in for a visit and bought it.

KAURI AVENUE created amongst the 13 acres of tropical plants and trees. For more info - wwwparonellapark.com.au/highres

JOSEPHINE FALLS A nice easy walk to these falls in part of the Wooroonooran National Park which flows from Bartle Frere, Queensland’s highest mountain.

THE BOULDERS south of Cairns inland from Babinda which is a really nice town, the gorge must look spectacular in the wet season. There seem to be so many places that would be great to brave the wet weather to revisit and watch in all their glory.

The Tableland

GILLIES HIGHWAY LOOKOUT On our trip to Port Douglas with the van in tow we travelled down this windy highway from the tablelands so no chance to stop. Today we revisited the area and it was a lovely clear day with views across the valley to Gordonvale.

CATHEDRAL FIG TREE The tree is spectacular and the board states that the weight of the leaves alone is equal to a small car, a girth of 44 metres, the crown covers 2000 square metres, it is 48 metres tall and is around 500 years old. The rainforest around it was lovely with an abundance of bird life.

LAKE TINAROO we did the Danbulla Forest Drive around this dam which was built to service the Barron River hydro scheme. There were a lot of people camping and it is meant to have a great source of barramundi. The spillway would look very impressive in the wet season.

The tableland has a variety of crops; sugar, bananas, mangos, lychees, coffee and potatoes to name just a few.

R and R

THE INLET,  Port Douglas we have been really lazy the last few days and have mastered doing not much. Weather has been kind and the beach has been lovely, August seems to be a great time to visit here, we highly recommend it.

Back in Paradise

FOUR MILE BEACH,  Port Douglas this morning. After all our travels this is still our favourite holiday destination. Since we got here on Sunday the weather has been a bit ordinary but somehow the days have flown by. We did pop into Cairns on Tuesday to get the tyres rotated and do some shopping, funny being back in the big smoke, two lanes of traffic, round abouts, traffic lights and lots of cars. It is really nice to be set up for a few weeks, funny not getting up in the morning and go, go, go.

FOUR MILE BEACH, Port Douglas this afternoon, it was lovely to see clear blue skies, bit of a strong wind coming off the sea though. Have spent a few hours today sorting out photos to get printed, a job I have been delaying, but good to have under way.

CAR WASH Paul giving our house on wheels a much needed wash on our way north to Port Douglas, so nice to be rid of  most of that red dust.

Back to the Tropics

EMU AND CHICK on our  way yesterday to Mt Surprise, they sure do blend in with the surroundings. It was a lovely easy drive from Normanton, with savannah and then some ranges close to our destination.

ATHERTON TABLELANDS it was great to see green rolling hills after the last few months. We are now in Cairns and have travelled 2357 km's since leaving Katherine on Sunday. It was nice to park up today and actually set up our house on wheels, even though it is only for two nights. Sara's Mum is here in the park so we have had a chin wag and will catch up tomorrow. Tonight we are meeting other friends who live here, so very social.

Nice to be North

SKIPPY Today we left Cloncurry which is east of Mt Isa, between these two towns there is lovely hilly and rocky countryside which is such a nice change from the previous days.

On the first couple of hours on our journey north there was a lot of road kill, but it was still a surprise to see this kangaroo bounding across the road during the daylight which is unusual.

WANDERING STOCK we have travelled a lot of roads with signs warning of wandering stock and there were a few on the road today. We also got a cracked windscreen today after 72,000 km’s of motoring.

Tonight we are in Normanton and what a difference 383 km's makes in the temperature, back into lovely warm weather.

Another Change Of State

STUART HIGHWAY just south of Katherine, check out the speed limit, we cruise along at 95 km’s per hour. This was the scenery for most of the 512 km's down to Renner Springs where we camped up at the roadhouse last night.

RENNER SPRINGS we were up with the sparrows this morning and were rewarded with this lovely sunrise. It sure has got nippy, only got to 20 degrees today, a bit drastic after 35 degrees in Katherine.

BARKLY HIGHWAY yes the scenery is pretty exciting, although you do change from mallee and salt bush to almost prairie grass and there were very strong cross winds all the way. We have now crossed the border and on the home turf of Queensland, exciting and scary at the same time as reality is another day closer. Today we did 583 km's, although a fair distance it is an easy drive says me who does the navigating.