"Our Paronella Park Page

Our trusty “Rough Guide” leads us up into the foothills of the Atherton Tablelands, past the market town of Innisfail and onto the most quirky of architectural attractions that you could possible come across - Paronella Park. The minor road off the Bruce Highway is picturesque - winding and zigzagging through cane fields, past little villages of weatherboard Queenslander houses, over log bridges and gradually climbing up into those misty mountains that have shadowed our late afternoons for the past few days.
Without going into a tour guide spiel, Paronella Park is the remains of a bizarre house and garden complex built by a Catalonian immigrant, José Paronella, over a period of many years in the 1930s. It’s concrete structures have decayed somewhat and been taken over by the jungle so that walking through the Park feels a bit like you have stumbled upon a Mayan city, or a Cambodian temple complex. A lady takes us on a guided tour with a half dozen others and it is well worth the money. The old buildings are a fabulous example of decayed, art deco grandeur, and the gardens, with hidden pathways, tunnels, watercourses, boulevards of palms and bamboo thickets are stunning.
The icing on this querky cake are the huge butterflies that flutter about in the lush undergrowth - the emerald green, gold and black Cairns Birdwing and the electric blue Ulysses.

We only came here by accident, a turn of the page in our guide, but we are glad we did."