Kiandra New South Wales Australia

The locality of Kiandra is now a ghost town with the old Court House, ruins and enough memories to bring the valley alive. In its heyday it was a true gold rush town which rose and fell in less than a year.

At its height it attracted over 10 000 men, women and children and saw the construction of banks, hotels and the usual services required by such a large population. In less than a year most of the gold was gone and the population was reduced to a 200-300.

Kiandra is often claimed to be the birthplace of skiing in Australia. Miners strapped palings of Alpine Ash to their feet to ski down the hills. By the 1870’s annual ski carnivals were organised.

Today all that remains of Kiandra township and its mining era are the cemetary, courthouse/goal, chimneys from Yan’s Store, Matthews’ Cottage, racelines, dams and mullock heaps. A self guided heritage walk includes signs on the sites of many of the main buildings to give visitors a sense of Kiandra as it was.

Please note there are no facilities at Kiandra.