LEODESTRAVELOZZ

20210623 José Paronella arrived in Australia from Spain, in 1913 and for the next 11 years he worked, cutting sugar cane initially, then purchasing, improving, and reselling cane farms. In 1924 he returned to Spain and married Margarita in 1925 and there trip back to Australia was their honeymoon. José first saw this 13 acres of virgin scrub along Mena Creek in 1914 were he eventually purchased it in 1929 for £120 and started to build his pleasure gardens and reception centre for the enjoyment of the public. If you look close up the stairs and near our hats their is a flood level marker indercating the level the floods reached in 1946. Paronella Park from the top the Mena Creek waterfall, circa 1935, if only it still looked the same. The suspention bridge over Mene Creek In 2008, the hydro-electric dam was updated and now generates all the power for the park and puts power back into the grid for neighboring towns. All of the structures were constructed of poured, reinforced concret...

20210622 Not far from Ingham is this quite streach of beach called Forrest Beach thats overlooking Orpheus Island, and the Palm Island Group. The town offers a small convenient store, Hotel, a fast food outlet and a long sandy beach for that daily fresh air walk or throw in a line if your keen for a fish. I manage some fly by shots of the surrounding area as we pass Ingham and drive onto Forrest Beach. The sugar cane is on the move, the trucks are loaded and head to their drop off point to load the trains ready for the mill. Suger cane, sugar cane and more sugar cane, this is the familar sceen as we head to Cairns. Forrest Beach, a quite untouched streach of theQueensland coast line. We camped the night in a $10 camp grounds and walked the area but the wind was blowing and it beccame chilly so after checking out the area we returned to our van in time for a nice coldie. 20210623 After breakie we pack up and checked out the Forrest Hotel and camping grounds before leaving, I was plesant...

20210621 It seems we've been following the Great Dividen Rang for ever, the range runs from Queensland through New South Wales and into Victoria and runs parallel to the coast for about 2,300 miles (3,700 kilometers), we sure do have some lovely scinic sites as we travel the Queensland road and head into Townsville. Deb and Dave moved to Townsville from Dampier about four years ago now and they fit in here like a glove. We passed many Sorghum/Milo farms along the way and with the back drop of the Great Dividen Range just makes it all the more inviting. Before we settle in for the night we take a drive to check out their new surroundings and grabbed a photo of these pair having a good old chin wag. After our tour we stop in at Bushland Beach Taven for a few coldies. Here we were sitting in the pub enjoying a nice coldie with some of their mates when Bill, an aboriginal man walks up to the bar, and out of the blue says:  I saved $18 a month today, I just found out the kid I was ...

20210619 After having no reception over the last few days we decided to stop at Home Hill for a couple of day to catch up on my blog but first we were told about the Whitsunday Gold, a coffee plantation on the Bruce Highway and just 1 minute north of Proserpine so we stopped to check it out. Their is a cafe I was told served great lunches and a gift shop to brows through, pigs, many birds scatted through out the complex, a lovely garden and over 140,000 Arabica coffee trees. Taking time out at the Whitsunday Gold Peter and Nikki, brought some land, seeds were sourced, a green house built and the beginning of the Whitsunday Gold Coffee Farm began. The farm started selling various coffee so a small shop was opened but then in 2010 Peter passed away from motor neuron disease leaving Nikki to contend with their new adventure, then in 2017, cyclone Debbie ripped through the Region causing damage. Nikki made a decision to developed and rebuild the farm that today is an expanding bus...