Paronella Park – Qld

What a great place and I am so glad we took the time to come and visit. I must admit we were a little hesitant to begin with because of the camp/caravan sites. But we manage and it is just another thing I personally can tick off my buckets list. Although I must admit Graeme was also very pleased that we made the time to visit as we both fell in love with the sheer romance of the place.

The original owner Jose Paronella had a dream. His dream was to build a Spanish Castle. However, it was not just a matter of coming to Australia, choosing a plot and building. A lot of hard work went into Jose being able to work at his dream. I don’t need to go into all the details as you can read all about it at the Paronella Park website.

Anyway, we decided to stay at the caravan facilities, even though they were quite squeeze. The camping/caravanning facilities were quite busy the night we stayed. Oh yes and that is another thing, you can only book for one night, but the payment includes the day and night tours of the park, which are highly recommended. So at the time of booking it cost us $80 for two people and this included our site for the caravan, a day tour and the beautiful night tour.

The facilities are OK for someone stopping with a caravan. You have the use of power and water, if that is what you want. Toilet facilities and hot showers are available, but be warned. Many camper vans stop here overnight and with the rain we experienced at the time the facilities were quite muddy and wet and usually in use. My choice was to have a quick shower in the van :).

The owner did say to us that he is working at opening up a new caravan parking facility over at the Mena Hotel which is also owned by the current Paronella Park owners.