It’s fair to say you wouldn’t expect to find a Spanish Castle in the rainforest of the north Queensland hinterland of Innisfail. I’m not really sure where Queensland becomes north Queensland, and then when it becomes Far North Queensland. Just thought I should put that out there for future reference.

So, there’s this place called Paronella Park. A Spanish dude called Jose Paronella made his fortune in the cane fields in the 1920s. This gave him the funds to build his dream – a Spanish castle. It’s the most unexpected find on our trip so far. He built a castle with a ball room that hosted parties and dinners for many guests as well as theatre productions. There’s a landing near the waterfall (Mena Waterfall) with space for his guests to watch the spectacular falls. There’s another building that was used for a dining room, two tennis courts, and change rooms. He built walk ways through the forest and drilled out a tunnel that takes you to another small waterfall.

The Refreshment Room at Paronella Park

This place has its own hydro electric generator using the waterfall and was the first in Queensland.

At Mena Waterfall in Paronella Park

 There’s a long, long story about who owned the place over the decades since Jose died in 1948. Suffice to say, it suffered from a fire, a few cyclones and one huge rainforest eating it up. It was rediscovered in about 2004 by a couple who have lovingly restored it and opened it to the public again. With the help of Jose’s daughter, Theresa, who was living in Brisbane, the new owners even found this truly amazing avenue of Kauri trees that Jose planted.

Avenue of Kauri trees

Jose even planted another row a couple of metres into the rainforest because these will one day be so fat that you won’t be able to walk between them. You could knock down the central row, use the timber (make a fortune) and still have an avenue of kauris. Only thing is – that will take about a thousand years. But hey, Jose liked to plan ahead.

These are the most majestic trees. They tower up, perfectly straight, way into the sky. Here’s my favourite photo of them:

Kauri – Supertree