Winter in Northern Queensland...

… is definitely the place to be if you hate the cold weather. We spent two weeks in Townsville, saw the sights

(Townsville from the ferry)

and visited Magnetic Island too.

(Arthur Bay)

(Horseshoe Bay)

(at Horseshoe bay)

We had a couple of days at our favourite free camping spot, Balgal Beach (60kms north of Townsville) then headed to Paronella Park. It was Spaniard, Jose Paronella’s, dream to build a castle and he found a virgin forest alongside the spectacular Mena Creek Falls. It’s based on his childhood memories of Catalonian castles and included picnic areas by the lake, tennis courts, tunnels and bridges and a movie theatre which transformed into a ballroom at weekends, all surrounded by 7,000 tropical plants and trees. It also included the first hydro-electric plant in North Queensland which was build to power the 13 acre park and the grounds opened to the public in 1935. A huge fire swept through the castle in 1979, leaving only the walls and turret and a number of cyclones and floods over the next 25 years took their toll. It’s now heritage listed and ongoing restoration work means the park will be around for many years to come.

We’re now back in Cairns and my best friend from London, Yvonne (aka ‘twin’) and her husband are here – yay! We took them up to the Atherton Tablelands and here we are at Millaa Millaa Falls yesterday, showing off our new watches (Yvonne got hers for Christmas), and neither of us knew the other had got exactly the same make, Skagen, which again, neither of us had heard of before!

My oldest school friend, Jenny and her husband and son fly in from Perth tomorrow. So, there’s going to be a bit of celebrating going on this week (can’t think why!)  :-)