Paronella Park





Mena Creek Falls

 Imagine living in the 1930's, what was the entertainment like back then? We visited http://www.paronellapark.com.au/  at Mena Creek near Innisfail and discovered how much enjoyment people gained from one mans dream. At first we were not going to go in, but, we met the owner at the door who gave us a great deal on entry and site in the joining caravan park we could not pass the opportunity. It was well worth the visit and I would recommend it to everyone. The girls loved Paronella Park and enjoyed every bit of it.

A guided tour of the grounds revealed the story behind Paronella Park, Jose Paronella came to Australia to build his dream in 1934. His dream was to build a castle for people to come and enjoy. The first castle was the ballroom and theatre and the second castle was the tea rooms with tennis courts and boche lawns. All this was built on the Mena Creek and he designed the grounds so a view of the waterfall could be enjoyed the the fullest. Kate especially enjoyed the tunnel of love at the end of lovers lane. This tunnel was built to put an aquarium in the tunnel but the walls were too porous and the tanks started to leak, it now houses tiny bats. But still imagine a stroll down lovers lane with views of mena creek falls then thru the tunnel to another waterfall coming from a natural spring. Quite romatic and amazing. The brains and ideas that Jose Paronella had for the park were so clever, he even engerneered and built his own hydro electricity plant to power the park. So imagine back when there was no television or power, going to the castle to watch a film.

Night tour

 Emmas favourite part was the night tour, it was amazing seeing the castles and the falls lit up at night, the girls were both mesmerized.

We went for an early morning walk through the park to see the turtles and feed the multiples of fish. The girls loved touching the eels, they were massive and very greedy. The fish feeding area at the base of mena falls was built in the 1930's as a picinic area, where you could swim or take a (wooden) boat for a row.

Paronella Park would have been a very popular place back in its days. The current owners are doing a fantastic job to preserve one mans dream and share this wonderful story to us today.

Feeding and touching the eels