Kings Around Oz: On the Road to Townsville

After leaving Cairns our first stop was Paronella Park. This is a castle that was built in the 1930's by Jose` Paronella. His dream was always to build a castle and that is what he and his wife did. He even built his own hydro power station from the waterfall that was on his land to power the castle. His vision, drive and determination was incredible. Paronella Park opened to the public in 1935 and was the social place to be with a Ballroom for dances, Movie Theatre, Tennis Courts and Swimming Holes not to mention the gardens that in one year he planted around 7500 plants!!!! Sadly he died in the late 40's and then his wife and son took over. Jose`'s wife died in the 60's and then his son died in the 70's it stayed in the family for a few more years but then the park was sold out of the family in 1977. In 1979 a fire destroyed most of the Ballroom and the owners then abandoned the property. A few cyclones came through which further damaged the property and it just deteriorated to a crumbling castle. In 1993 the current owners bought the property and now have the park open to the public once again. The castle will never be able to be rebuilt but they are maintaining what is left and bringing the gardens back to something like what Jose` had dreamed of. This was a fantastic tour and the stories that are told during the day and night tours are just so incredible. If you ever visit Far North Queensland it is worth a look. We really enjoyed our day and night here and is a place that we will definitely come back to. Once leaving here we did some bushing camping at Toomulla Beach where the kids had a great time playing at the beach and just running around in the dirt again. We then spent a couple of days with friends at Blue Water before heading into Townsville to watch the V8 Supercars arrive in the truck parade. It was all very exciting and Haydan loved seeing Mack from the Cars movie. Then next day we went to look at the V8 utes and classic cars at the car show and by then Haydan was soooooooooooooooooooo excited about the Townsville 400!!!! V8's here we come. GO HOLDEN!!!!!