The ghost towns detailed here are significant examples but not all the examples of the ghost towns in Australia. They have been included either for their historic significance, or because they have other significance which is detailed in the text.
Amherst
The town began as a mining settlement which was referred to as Daisy Hill. After a discovery of gold during the Gold Rush of 1853, the location became known as an extremely rich goldfield soon thereafter. Daisy Hill had gained a particular notoriety, due to an illegal gold rush in February 1849, that was based solely upon the spurious claims made by a shepherd. The town’s location now resembles an uneven paddock of some 10 acres (40,000 m2), but has little showing of its startling and significant historical prevalence. Much of the original township has been destroyed by bushfire, and little remains other than the Amherst Cemetery.
Location: 58 km north of Ballarat; 5 km west of Talbot; 173 km north west of Melbourne.
Cape Clear
A small town with only mullock heaps, large steam boilers and scattered gold mining relics to show it has a goldmining past. The Devil’s Kitchen is an impressive gorge nearby. The houses of the once thriving mining community of Piggoreet once flanked these cliffs. A cairns marks the site of the community school. Mullock heaps from the Try Again mine can still be seen in the gorge.
Cape Clear was named by Irish goldminers who originated from Cape Clear in Ireland. Despite its name, it is about 100 kilometres from the coast. A 13 metre high model lighthouse with a working light was constructed near the hotel in 2008 to create a local landmark.
From Berringa (5 km east), continue 10 km south to Illalabook where a wooden poppet-head, shops, a school and churches survive from the goldrush days.
Location: 18 km south of Smythesdale; 37 km south west of Ballarat: 154 km west of Melbourne.
The town began as a mining settlement which was referred to as Daisy Hill. After a discovery of gold during the Gold Rush of 1853, the location became known as an extremely rich goldfield soon thereafter. Daisy Hill had gained a particular notoriety, due to an illegal gold rush in February 1849, that was based solely upon the spurious claims made by a shepherd. The town’s location now resembles an uneven paddock of some 10 acres (40,000 m2), but has little showing of its startling and significant historical prevalence. Much of the original township has been destroyed by bushfire, and little remains other than the Amherst Cemetery.
Location: 58 km north of Ballarat; 5 km west of Talbot; 173 km north west of Melbourne.
A small town with only mullock heaps, large steam boilers and scattered gold mining relics to show it has a goldmining past. The Devil’s Kitchen is an impressive gorge nearby. The houses of the once thriving mining community of Piggoreet once flanked these cliffs. A cairns marks the site of the community school. Mullock heaps from the Try Again mine can still be seen in the gorge.
Cape Clear was named by Irish goldminers who originated from Cape Clear in Ireland. Despite its name, it is about 100 kilometres from the coast. A 13 metre high model lighthouse with a working light was constructed near the hotel in 2008 to create a local landmark.
From Berringa (5 km east), continue 10 km south to Illalabook where a wooden poppet-head, shops, a school and churches survive from the goldrush days.
Location: 18 km south of Smythesdale; 37 km south west of Ballarat: 154 km west of Melbourne.
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Once home to more than 15,000 people, Fryerstown once had 25 hotels, five breweries, three schools and 37 quartz reef mines). The beautiful 1880 Court House, the Burke & Wills Institute and the bushland setting provide an interesting insight into its rich history. Every Australia Day weekend provides an influx of visitors with the annual Fryerstown Antique Fair.
First settled in 1853 after a rush to a rich claim nearby, by 1884 Homebush was firmly established as a business centre, with two agents, a bootmaker, a butcher, two carpenters, two contractors, nine farmers, a gardener, a registrar, a station master, a storekeeper, and a teacher. Lower Homebush, three miles away, where the commercial life of the town had moved closer to some deep-lead mines, had a blacksmith, two bootmakers, a carpenter, a draper, an engineer, two farmers, three hotels, two mining managers, and twelve stores. But Homebush owed its existence entirely to the mines: by 1920 all large-scale gold mining activity in Avoca shire had ended.
The combined population of Homebush and Homebush Lower had fallen to only 150, a huge decline from its peak of 14,000 during the rushes. Businesses closed and buildings were dismantled.All that remains of a once-flourishing community is a school building and some mullock heaps.
Location: 191 km north west of Melbourne; 76 km north of Ballarat; 18 km west of Maryborough; 10 km east of Avoca.
Noted for heritage sites associated with the Victorian Gold Rush, near or within the Castlemaine Diggings National Heritage Park. These include the Red Hill hydraulic gold sluicing site and the Burying Flat Cemetery, also known as Deadmans Gully Burial Ground. A rush began to New Year’s Flat on Fryers Creek on New Years Day, 1853. The rush was described by a digger as “the most animated sight of those stirring times that I ever witnessed”. The settlement arose nearby. A Catholic church was consecrated in 1865, the building existing until 1956 when it was demolished.
Location: 13 km south of Castlemaine; 114 km north of Melbourne; 51 km south of Bendigo.
The goldfields of Kingower became known as the potato goldfields because of the quantity and size of the gold nuggets found here. There were some 4,000 diggers here in August 1857 when Robert and James Ambrose and Samuel and Charles Napier discovered the Blanche Barkly nugget, at that time the world’s largest gold nugget, weighing in at 1743 ounces. The Blanche Barkly remains the third largest gold nugget ever discovered to this day.
The discovery of the nearby Inglewood goldfield drained Kingower of most of its population in 1859. From then onward, only a small number of diggers continued “working the field,” despite large nuggets still being unearthed from time to time.
In 1980, Kevin Hillier was fossicking in the forest behind the old Kingower school house when he came across the 875 ounce ‘Hand of Faith’ nugget. The nugget was sold to the Golden Nugget Casino in Las Vegas for over US$1 million and remains the largest nugget still in existence in the world today, and the largest ever found with a metal detector. Today, Kingower is a tiny village of perhaps 50 persons.
Location: 12 km west of Inglewood; 57 km north werst of Bendigo; 199 km north west of Melbourne.
A quaint former mining village where gold was found in 1848. Chinese miners, among others, worked the local shafts until the gold ran out, the miners remained in the area and set up market gardens. Much mining equipment can still be found in the Linton district; huge mullock heaps mark the mine sites. The cemetery near two of the richest areas – Nuggety and Bloomers Gullies – has a large Chinese burial section.
Location: 20 km east of Skipton; 33 km south west of Ballarat; 149 km west of Melbourne.
Founded in 1863, towards the end of the Victorian gold rush, after two prospectors struck gold at nearby McCallum s Creek. Two months later, there were 250 stores and restaurants catering to a population of around three to four thousand, although many shops and residents soon returned to nearby Maryborough. The town was sustained for over 50 years through gold mining, including the Kong Meng Mine. It is now a small rural area consisting mainly of farmland.
At the 2006 census, Majorca and the surrounding rural area had a population of 387. All that remains of the town are a few rambling buildings. White mullock heaps run across paddocks behind the town; Gibraltar Poppet-head, outside of town, is one of the few wooden poppet-heads still standing in the goldfields.
Location: 11 km south of Maryborough and 171 km north west of Melbourne.
Notable for the discovery of the world’s largest gold nugget, the Welcome Stranger in 1869. The area is a historical gold mining town and is now mostly deserted. In 1855 it is estimated there were 16,000 people living in Moliagul during the peak of the Victorian gold rush period. Moliagul Post Office opened on 15 November 1858 and closed in 1971. Reverend John Flynn, founder of the Royal Flying Doctor Service of Australia, was born in Moliagul in 1880. The Welcome Stranger Discovery Walk at Moliagul Historic Reserve 2km south west of the town, leads to many interesting mining relics, including the remains of a Chinese camp.
Location: 202 km north west of Melbourne; 60 km west of Bendigo.
Part of Victoria’s ‘Golden Triangle, which contains some of the world’s richest gold fields. The Rheola area became famous for its beds of large nuggets scattered through the gullies. Some of the gold nuggets found in these fields include the Welcome Stranger, Hand of Faith, and the Blanche Barkly.
The Viscount Canterbury, Viscountess Canterbury and Precious were all found in the gold field at Rheola in the 1870s. Rheola today compises of less than a dozen buildings; the population of the village and surrounding farms is around 140.
Location: 29 km south of Wedderburn; 60 north west of Bendigo; 200 km north west of Melbourne.
A small community in the Brisbane Ranges. In the early 1850s gold was found near the town, and as a consequence it grew on land belonging to pastoralists from the von Stieglitz family. The last gold mine in the town closed in 1941 and the population as of 2006 was less than 100. The Steiglitz Post Office’s history closely follows the town’s history: it opened on 15 March 1856 and closed in 1966.
Location: 92 km west of Melbourne.
A party of Italians discovered gold in the surrounding hills in 1859, attracting over 4,000 diggers. The original town was called Albert Town, but in 1863 became Stuart Mill. It was not named after a mill here, but for British philosopher John Stuart Mill. The town survives with a population of around 240.
Relics from the reef mines of Isis and Greenoch survive in the bush. These include a relatively intact puddling machine, a water race, Railtons Tunnel and mud-brick Chinese ovens. Remnants of forestry workings and bee keepers can also to be found.
Location: 23 km south of St Arnaud; 110 km north west of Bendigo; 223 km north west of Melbourne.
One of Victoria’s best preserved ghost towns. The intact streetscapes have prominent two-storey buildings, miners cottages and single fronted shops. The Back Creek (as Talbot was originally known) gold rush began in 1854. the Goodwoman’s Hill rush began in March 1855; the Scandanavian Rush, a continuation of the Goodwoman’s Hill workings, led to the population peaking in March 1859 at around 15,000. The main street alone boasted 23 restaurants, a variety of hotels and ale stores, tobacconists, 4 butchers, 5 boot shops or boot makers, 3 tent shops, 6 drapers, a number of druggists or chemist shops, milliners, saddlers, confectioners and billiard saloons.
Many of the buildings erected in the main street in that year still stand. Talbot’s permenance grew out of it becoming a commercial centre for the surrounding diggings, which included Amherst, Rocky Flat, Stony Creek, Kangaroo Flat, Red Lion, Caralulup, Mia Mia, Emu and Dunach. By 1875, most of the gold had been won and Talbot switched gear as a service town for farms that were being established in the district. Talbot’s population has remained steady at around 300 for the last 100 years.
Location: 53 km north of Ballarat; 16 km south of Maryborough; 18 km north west of Clunes; 167 km north west of Melbourne.
A town of around 150 today, Tarnagulla boasted a population in excess of 20,000 in 1865, the year in which the gold yield from the diggings here reached over 3 million (current value). The move to quartz mining gave Tarnagulla its permenance, with brick and stone buildings replacing the earlier canvas structures.
The surviving buildings from that era include the post office, two hotels, two banks, four large churches, the court house and police lock up. A private museum tells the history of Tarnagulla. A cairn marks the Poverty Mine, which extracted 13.5 tonnes of gold from rich reefs deep below the surface.
Location: 15 km north east of Dunolly; 47 km west of Bendigo; 183 km north west of Melbourne.
First settled in the 1850s Victorian gold rush by prospectors, including Chinese miners. By 1857, 30,000 miners were resident in the surrounding area and the main street was about a mile (1.6 km) long. Timor prospered until the collapse of the local mining industry during World War 1.
The general store, established in 1852, is one of the oldest shops in the state and a school was established in 1863. The school still operates but the store ceased trading in 1997, after 145 years of continuous operation. The last pub closed in 1963. There are engine house ruins at the Grand Duke Mine site, which had four shafts and employed 150 men. The basalt arch of the pump house and the battery footings are all that remains of the North Duke Mine, 3 km north of the town on Bet Bet Road.
Location: 11 km north of Maryborough; 179 km north west of Melbourne.
The historic mining township of Waanyarra is found in the Dunolly State Forest, 50 km west of Bendigo. The forest is part of the Box and Ironbark belt that covers from Stawell in the south west to Wodonga in the north east.
Many natural attractions can be found in the area as well as remnants from early Aborigines such as ceremonial stone arrangements, canoe trees and hand dug wells. Buildings from the mining era include the White Swan Hotel (1905), Jo9nes Creek and Waanyarra State Schools and Head Teacher’s residence, and Morton’s Old Hotel. More >>
Pronounced ‘roo’, at this former gold mining village, visitors to Whroo can still see the 25 metre deep open cut mine on the hill, with the mine owner’s homestead to the south. Four large pine trees remain from his 4 acre garden. A row of sugar gums marks the site of the mechanics’ institute where balls were held on moonlit nights. Also south of the hill is the evocative Whroo Cemetery and a signposted walking track that leads from the cemetery to an Aboriginal waterhole.
Location: in the Rushworth State Forest 7 km south of Rushworth, 181 km north of Melbourne.
Not far north of the Latrobe Valley and nestled in the foothills of the Great Dividing Range, the Mountain Rivers District provides a beautiful combination of history and nature. In this picturesque setting is found the magnificent former goldmining town of Walhalla. It’s almost as if it has been snap frozen in time. Not many people live at Walhalla but many of its original buildings remain. These include the fire station, museum, post office, Windsor House, Mechanics Institute, bank vault Freemason’s Lodge, St John’s Church of England and, possibly the most photographed thing in Walhalla, the grand old band rotunda.
During the 1880s Walhalla was one of the state’s richest goldfields. The Long Tunnel Extended Mine, which operated from 1871 until 1911, yielded 8 15,568 ounces of gold and paid dividends of $2.5 million. The hilly terrain meant local sports fans had to virtually cut the top off a mountain in order to establish a sports field for football and cricket. The climb to the top was so arduous that local sportsmen would ascend the day before and camp overnight.
