Mission Beach

Saturday 13 July

Today we had a nice late start to the day and while Tom did his homework Declan and I headed in to Mission Beach to ride the Blo Carts. Blo Carts are 3-wheeler carts that have a sail on them and you ride them along the beach. Finding out they did not start to 1:00pm, Declan and I decided to have a look around town and visit the Information Centre. After finding Clump Point Lookout (which would have a lovely view in sunny weather) and the boat ramp which we decided would be a good place to fish, we doubled back to find out what we could do at Mission Beach with wet weather. The place is set up for the sunshine, and it would be a lovely relaxing place in that sort of weather, but we are not having much luck with the rain - this is meant to be the dry season.

We were going to visit the Tully Sugar Mill but because of the rain they haven't been cutting cane and so there is no tour. There is a exotic fruit tasting session on Mondays and Tuesdays but we will have to see if we are still here by then. If the rain keeps up we will move on to Townsville.

Declan and I headed back to our campsite, picked up Linda and Tom, and headed back to the Blo Carts. We had hired 2 carts, a single seater and a double seater, for half an hour. These were great fun and you could have fun on these for a very long time. The half an hour seemed to disappear very quickly.

Declan and Tim on Blo Kart

Tom on BloKart

After lunch Declan and I headed back into Mission Beach to try our luck at fishing. The tides were not right and the time of year is not good for catching anything but it is relaxing for both of us to go through the process - or so I thought. Even though we were there for about 2 hours, I think I had my line in the water for about 10 minutes. I was either unsnagging, un-tangling, re-baiting, or attaching new tackle to Declan's rod - I think he enjoyed it!

Sunday 14 July

Kauri Pines walk

After talking to some of our neighbours at the caravan park we decided to go and have a guided tour of Paronella Park. Jose Paronella started building Paronella Park in about 1930 after coming to Australia from Spain and building his wealth buying and selling cane farms. His dream was to build a castle and his whole philosophy was built around entertaining people. He built castles, ballrooms, cafes, bathing areas, tennis and bocce courts and planted 7000 plants to landscape his gardens.
He even built Queensland's first hydro-electric power turbine to provide electricity to his estate from the waterfall in his backyard as there was no power in the area. Unfortunately his castle and gardens have been ravaged by floods and cyclones but you can still see the vision and forethought this man had.

Viewing platform and changing rooms

Natural Waterfall at Paronella Park

 This man was truly a visionary and even though Paronella Park is not still owned by the family, the current owners have received a grant from the National Trust to rebuild this beautiful place back to its former glory.

Water Feature powered by the creek