Innisfail Qld

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Innisfail is heavily dependent on the surrounding sugar cane and banana farms. The town was originally named Geraldton in 1882, to honour a local Irish Entrepreneur, Thomas Henry Fitzgerald. When a Russian ship sailed into the harbour in the early 1900’s, when it should have been sailing into Geraldton, Western Australia, the town realised it had to change its name to Innisfail. (The Captain should have checked Google Maps). Inis Fail is a romantic name for Ireland.

Innisfail lies in the heart of the Cassowary Coast, and our first port of call was to drive to Etty Bay, which is known as a hotspot for cassowary sightings. Etty Bay has a beautiful beach, however, no cassowaries to be seen there. We did however see a large goanna striding along the foreshore, no doubt looking for turtle eggs. On our way driving back to our Caravan Park, we sighted a sign for Mourilyon Harbour, and thought we would take a drive there. The harbour was dominated by a giant export Sugar Cane Terminal with associated port facilities. We did however, see two cassowaries alongside the road to the port. Both were large birds, and so we didn’t exit the car to get closer photos. That night we enjoyed a two hour concert in the caravan park by Bobby Dazzler, who was far and away the best entertainer we had encountered on our travels.

Mamu Tropical Skywalk lies in the mountains above Innisfail, and that was our destination the next day. We had been used to walking underneath the rainforest in our walks in and around the Daintree, and had just watched an ABC program on Choosing Australia’s Greatest Tree. One of the trees featured was the Cathedral Fig Tree that we had visited near Atherton, and showed the host, Paul West, of River Cottage fame, abseiling up to the top of the rainforest, and describing how important the crown of the rainforest was in the eco system. Mamu features a 40 metre long cantilever walkway over the top of the rainforest, as well as a 350 meter long elevated platform, with a 37 metre high tower with 100 steps, to climb at the end of the elevated walkway. The skywalk sits on the ridge high above the deep ravine carved through the mountains by the North Johnstone River. It was an amazing experience, and was as if we had abseiled up to the top of the rainforest.

We drove further up into the mountain range and saw signs for two waterfalls, Tchupala and Wallacha Falls, and we couldn’t resist walking 2.7 kms to see these natural wonders. It was a relatively short drive to Millaa Millaa Falls from there, and these would have to be our favourite falls of our trip. On our previous visit to the falls, we had experienced a zero temperature overnight at Ravenshoe, where we were staying, and it was just too cold to brave swimming under the falls. This was unfinished business, and despite the cool water, I jumped in and swam under Millaa Millaa Falls. These falls have featured in movies, documentaries and television commercials, advertising everything from Indian Lotto to Swedish Timotei shampoo.

The next day we again drove up into the mountains to visit Queensland’s number one tourist attraction, Paronella Park. The construction of the park was the dream of Jose Paronella, a young Spaniard who had sailed to Australia for a new life, arriving in Innisfail in 1913. He created wealth buying, improving and then selling cane farms and after eleven years and being financially wealthy, he returned to Spain to claim his promised bride, however, she had married another. He proposed to her younger sister Margarita, and one year later, they were bound for Australia. Jose purchased land around Mena Creek Falls, and began to build a castle for his new bride and future family. The castle and surrounding gardens we see today were almost completely hand crafted by Jose and his small team of workers. We enjoyed a tour of Paronella Park, and after dinner at the local hotel (owned by the proprietors of Paronella Park), we returned for the night Light Show, set to a musical score. Pretty spectacular.

We returned to Etty Bay and Mourilyan Harbour the next day, however, no cassowaries. We did however see an Echidna walking beside the road. Due to the weather forecasts showing rain for the next ten days at our next planned stay at Mission Beach, we changed our plans and booked in to Townsville, where the forecasts predicted no rain.

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