Paronella Park

About an hour south of Cairns, Paronelle Park is a weird place. It's been built in the thirties by a spaniard who dreamt of building a castle, moved to Australia, bough and sold stations until he had enough money, then built a castle. He also brought electricity and a cinema to a remote part of Queensland.

The place was abandonned for a while, flooded several time, resulting in it getting a much older look than most Australian monuments. It's visitable by day, but also by night where the lightworks make the place come alive.

We got there in the afternoon, and did the daytime visit, then waited for sunset and did the night-time visit under the full moon.

The whole place is built "towards" the waterfall: most alleys in the gardens are oriented so that the waterfall is visible at the end of it, and buildings are designes so that it's visible through the gates.

We come back at night for the light tour.

All the fountains are powered by a simple physics principle: water is taken from the top of the waterfall and a pipe runs to the fountains further down. The difference of height makes the water try to go up. So they are sustainable energy fountains, no pumps involved!