Day 41 – Sunday 29 August 2021 –108 Km

Up early and breakfast before a group KKOG photo shoot at 8am. One of the KKOG members has a drone so he flies that & takes some group photos with a row of Kimberley vans in the background. We are in no hurry to pack today, we don’t have too far to drive to our next destination.

We get away around 10.30 am & drive back through Yungaburra, then Malanda & Millaa Millaa before turning towards the coast. The scenery is very green with lots of rolling green hills and farms. Beautiful. The descent down the coastal range off the Atherton Tablelands we take slowly and carefully, there are lots of bends & long drop-offs over the edge. At the bottom of the range we come across one of the KKOG members that left before us, he is on the side of the road with wheel studs torn off the hub, with the passenger side wheel on the ground. He has another KKOG van stopped with him so we keep on driving as it is a dangerous place to stop and there are two cars very close behind me.

We find our way to our next destination, Mena Creek & the Paronella Park paddock is our home for the next two days. We find our spot & as we set up another Kimberley Karavan pulls up near us. It is the person that had stopped to help the damaged Karavan. He tells us that they are OK and have a spare hub to repair the damage. We have lunch & then head over to the Paronella Park office to arrange our day & night tours.

We start our day tour within 15 minutes and our eyes are opened by this amazing story. Paronella Park was built below Mena Creek Falls by a Spanish migrant called Jose Paronella as a way to make money from hospitality. He built impressive buildings in the Spanish style with balustrades and crenelated walls. They provided food & entertained paying guests. He built swimming pools, gardens & walkways plus the very first hydro-electric power station in Queensland to provide power for his enterprise. Floods & cyclones severely damaged the buildings and gardens over the years & after Jose died the family continued on for a while before selling. The site was abandoned before being found & resurrected as a tourist destination.  The current owners have done a great job of restoring the gardens, preserving the remaining building structures & restoring the hydro-electric system which provides power for the whole site plus some other buildings in town. We enjoyed the story and seeing the property & imagining how it must once have been. One man’s dream is in sad decay, but still kept alive by clever present day owners with Jose’s story.

After dinner we were back at Paronella Park at 6.15pm for the night tour. This tour is so different, with the grand ballroom lit up as well as Mena Creek Falls, they look even better at night under lights. After this we are taken to the old tennis courts and look back at the old dining room that has lighting showing off the old building to great effect. We listen to classical music especially written for Paronella Park and watch a great light show that is timed & themed with the music. It is very good & finishes too soon. Another great day.