Syrup, hot damper and sapotes: Dreamers all

We’ve camped in some beautiful spots enroute: Saunders Beach out of Townsville, a long stretch of isolated beach that just goes on and on; Hull Heads out of Tully, with the ocean on one side and a creek on the other, and unbelievable sunsets. Etty Bay is another, tucked in the back of Innisfail, a pretty sandy bay that has a shady beach not often found, walks to and along rocks, and skydiving for the more adventurous. Cassowaries venture on to the beach when it is quiet.

We found these sites just a few kilometres along a quiet road and voila! you come upon this amazing waterfront with amenities that allow overnight parking, sometimes even for free in the case of Saunders Beach, and they are among some of the finest sites along the coast. In many parts of the world you cannot even access seafront property like these, let alone sleep just inches from slapping waves as we have been doing, so this has been a rare treat for us.

Mind you, there is a sting in the tail, as always. There are so many campers in this part of the world, at this time of the year, that finding a space anywhere makes you feel like the tiniest sardine in the camping tin. Caravaners and motor-homers seem to occupy most of the road space too. Much of the traffic revolves around camping, and much of it is grey nomads. When you chat with folk it usually ends up being about which sites ahead are full, or have been full for weeks, and which sites you need to access before breakfast if you really need to camp in that spot.

Tonight we’re inland, in another scenic spot surrounded by lush tropical vegetation, albeit this time dripping with raindrops, not seafoam. We’re able to camp only one night only here as it is so popular: Paronella Park, a tourist spot made famous by a Spaniard, Jose Paronella, who came to Australia looking for work in 1911. He became a cane cutter, saving his earnings, to make a better life for himself and the girl he left behind. Unfortunately, when he went back to Catalonia to claim his betrothed she had married another. Luckily her sister, Marguerita, was single and happy to step in and fill the gap.

Jose and Marguerita married and eventually settled in North Queensland where Jose set about looking for property to buy. He bought a waterfall with several acres of land surrounding it, and there he built his dream. A castle, the promotion goes. But it was never big enough to be a castle. It was more a like an amusement park, or a pleasure garden, featuring a swimming pool, pavilion cafe and changing rooms, with a little house on the side for his wife and growing family. None of the structures are bigger than two up, two down, and even the cottage is teeny.

Jose and his labourers built everything using cane rails bought cheaply to use as the metal framework. This he had covered in thick mud stucco using materials from his land. Everything was adorned in Spanish style with ornamental balustrades around each structure, and when it was all complete he advertised, inviting the public to use the swimming facilities beneath the waterfall. Many had never seen anything like it. They came to ogle, but stayed to play: walking the tropical plant filled pathway, swimming beneath the waterfall, consuming vast quantitates of ice cream, afternoon teas and cool drinks from Marguerita’s cafeteria, keeping the family coffers reimbursed sufficiently to support Jose’s grand ideas.

He soon installed electricity, using the power of his waterfalls, well before anyone else in the region had it. And thinking to attract the night life he bought a giant ‘disco’ ball to hang from the ceiling of the largest room that doubled as a Cinema room on the weekends, but could be turned into a wedding venue if needed. The current promotors call it, grandly, ‘the ballroom’. The disco ball revolved, shooting pink and blue light into a room with blue velvet curtains and gold decorative trimming. Very unusual. But the good times did not last. Floods from the river, cyclones from the sea, fire and other disasters befell Joe’s pleasure gardens and in a few short years the buildings gradually fell into ruin as roofs burned down, timbers crashed through walls, and tropical rot took its toll turning the iron cane rails and the matted render into terminal cancer rot. Jose died young from stomach cancer: thin and worn. The family eventually sold out and moved on. The jungle re-established its roots and reclaimed the ruins — for decades.

New owners, however, bought the rusting hulk of Jose’s pleasure gardens in the 1990s. They propped up what remained of the buildings with jacks, pruned the gardens, trained tour guides in a spiel about Jose and his family, and illuminated the ruins and waterfalls at night, giving it a romantic glow, offering the gardens up as a visit to Jose’s castle: his dream since childhood when grandma told him exotic tales of Spanish nobles and their castles. Even the moss that is decaying it looks romantic.

Even today the touring public is lapping it up. It is currently listed as the #1 must visit place in Queensland. and the day we were there it felt as if half the touring public in the state were there with us, as buses keep rolling in, and the Jose’s tale was on constant offer well into the night.

That we are seeing nothing more than a couple of ruined and decayed old buildings and the tropical garden surrounding them for a very expensive entrance fee matters not. We seem happy to pay for the fairytale. Even if it is a bit like Monet’s garden in Giverny in France: nothing like it was when Monet used to paint there, but that doesn’t seem to matter. He did paint there. And we still have the urge to be in that space. No matter what it costs. Hundreds upon hundreds of us. Daily.