Day Nine: Paronella Park to Yungaburra
For no particular reason we scrambled to meet the 9.15am deadline to exit the caravan park and walk the short distance to Paronella Park for the day tour.
Blessed by a small group of eight, we spent the next 35 plus minutes listening to Vicki our tour guide explain all there was to know about Paronella. Her story telling combined detail with a drop of humour and Australiana to relay the life of a Spaniard. All in all it was and entertaining time, highlighting again the work ethic of one man determined to make his dreams and fortune come true in the rainforest.
With Vicki off to her next group, we spent about an hour walking the trails of the park taking time to grab photos, marvelling at the old buildings and ingenuity of the man who built them.
And we fed fish. Actually the free fish food was for the sole purpose of feeding turtles apparently. Reality revealed two lonely, hungry old turtles looking longingly at us for a morsel as hundreds of black something fish made the water boil at the sight of a pellet of food. We doubt the turtles will ever die of diabetes at this rate.
At slightly before lunch o’clock we hit the road, finally deciding on the best way to get to Yungaburra. In essence the best way was up the Palmerston Range into Malanda for a bite to eat at the bakery. On the way we scooted through beautiful country and marvelled at the amount of crystal clear water in the creeks. Something we don’t often see at home.
Finally we headed off towards our overnight stop at the Lakeside Caravan Park, a bit over 15s ks from Malanda. Or some of us did. A bit of radio and phone traffic revealed Denise and Richard had fought a long hard fight with google and lost. They finally arrived at the caravan park. Just the wrong one on the other side of the lake. A back track and they arrived to set up with us overlooking a beautiful waterway.
We busied ourselves doing van maintenance, re-acquainting ourselves with Hindenburg and doing not a lot else. A bit later Ron and Julie arrived having had a brilliant time at Ayr with relatives amongst cane fires. In a photo Ron sports a new age ‘Ash Cut’ with freshly burnt cane ash on his head.
As the night settled in we watched the moon rise over the lake, celebrated Julie’s 32nd birthday and told a few barely believable stories. The day ended with good food, great company and the promise of a better day tomorrow.
