We left Innisfail and drove south planning to visit all the places of interest we had missed on the way north.
The first stop was Paronella Park.
This is an extraordinary place built in the late twenties and early thirties by Jose Paronella, a Spanish immigrant cane cutter made good.
It was built as a pleasure park to serve the then large local population of cane farmers and cutters and their families.
It is set by a waterfall and has a once grand ballroom cum cinema styled as a Spanish Castle.
The gardens below the falls were developed from reclaimed cane fields. They include a now derelict cafeteria, also in the Spanish castle style, tennis courts, now a fine lawn used for functions, and a hand planted rainforest with thousands of trees and many exotic plants.
Jose died.
His wife and son tried to keep the place going his but declining trade and natural disasters defeated them.
Eventually the place became derelict.
It was bought five years ago by a couple who believed they could make a living running it as a tourist attraction. They have repaired most of the damage but have left it as Jose had built it as a sort of memorial to his extraordinary vision.
We left Paronella Park impressed both by Jose's vision and by the commitment of the new owners.
We moved on.
Etty Bay turned out to be a very small, not very nice beach with a very small, not very nice caravan park. We did see some really nice birds including a large flock of unidentified finches.
Mourilyan Harbour is just that, a commercial harbour with no attractive features.
We drove into Silkwood to do a little shopping and eventually found the general store and hidden between some houses.
It's good to visit these places because we know not to go there again.
We had been told that Kurrimine Beach was worth a visit so we went there.
It took some time to find the attractive bit of Kurrimine Beach but we eventually booked into the Council Caravan Park camping area. No power but only $7 a night with cold showers. It is set right on a beautiful beach in among some real tropical trees.
The only slightly disturbing thing was the procession every morning and evening of tractors going to the boat ramp along the road behind the park. The tidal range here is about three metres (10 ft) and the beach is a very gradual one which makes it impractical to use ordinary vehicles to launch boats on trailers so everyone has his own tractor!
We stayed five nights and quite quickly learned to ignore the sound of tractors driving by.