We ended up staying at this small National Park campsite near Nandroya Fall. It wasn’t all that great because they were doing construction on the road near the campsite and they were using it to house all of the equipment. We figured we could free camp there without a reservation for the night because no one in their right mind would want to stay there. And we were right. We had no trouble whatsoever.
When we got up in the morning we packed everything up and who do we see turning into the park? Scottie of course. His original plan was to stay around Cairns for a few days. But I guess he got bored and he managed to track us down in the middle of the rainforest.
We told him about the waterfalls we saw the previous day and he decided to go and do that while we checked out a few things further down the road towards the coast.
The day before we passed a sign that read “Scenic Drive” so we wanted to get that done early because we weren’t sure how long the road was. Turns out it was only a kilometre long so we had way more time to explore in the morning than we bargained for.
Just up the road from the spot was a small lookout point with a hiking trail leading off from it. We had time to kill so we ended up taking the trail down to another lookout point. We chilled there for a bit and we did a little meditation session together.
To be fair, by this point I hadn’t meditated in a while because when you’re camping with six or twelve people it’s kind of difficult to find the time and space to do it. But it is something that I enjoy doing, teaching people about meditation I mean.
After that, we had to go towards the coast because of the way that the roads worked. We stopped off at Josephine Falls for a swim. I had been there before but Alex had not. Just like Millaa Millaa, I didn’t mind too much because it is a beautiful place and it’s probably one of the better swimming spots I’ve been to in Australia.
From there we weren’t sure what we were going to do. Scott met us at Josephine and we kind of just started driving east. We had two options really. Head straight for Mission Beach. Or stop off at this place called Paronella Park.
Scott had been told by a few people that it was a must-see while up in the tablelands but I hadn’t even heard of it before. So we did what we always do when we’re being indecisive. We flipped a coin. And the coin told us to head off towards Paronella Park.
When we arrived Scott got to talking with the owner, who I must say is a very passionate man. He offered us entrance into the grounds and a camping spot in the caravan park for a good price. So we decided to take him up on his offer. We needed a place to stay for the night anyway.
I was really glad that we stopped off here because it was such a weird and quirky place. Jose Paronella built a series of castles and other buildings on the land in the 1930s and it became a theme park of sorts. He used the waterfall nearby to generate electricity for the park and this aroused the interest of the local communities who didn’t have electricity at that time (northern Queensland wouldn’t receive electricity at large until the 1960s).
The entire place was built by hand and the structures and the surrounding gardens make you feel as if you are in some type of fantasy land. Especially the area around the waterfall. It’s pretty spectacular really. One can only imagine what it must have looked like back in the day.
Eventually the man died and the estate passed down to various family members who let the property fall int disrepair. It wasn’t until the 1990s that the current owners bought the place, cleared the surrounding forest, and opened it up to the general public.
There was a light show at one of the castles during the evening and the owner spoke to us at length about the project and where he saw it going in the future. He was just one of those people that gave off such good energy. You could tell he lived for this thing. He was committed to his life’s work, which at this point was the park, and it gave me energy to find that for myself.
One day I will. You can’t go chasing after it. Just like the owner of Paronella Park, I’ll continue to travel and at some point I’ll find exactly what I’m looking for.