Day 17 - Kanyaka Homestead Ruins

 We stopped at the old Kanyaka Station Ruins.  The Kanyaka Ruins are in an isolated outback setting, with a tragic history, and the small cemetery give the place a deeply atmospheric and ghostly reputation among travellers. 

Kanyaka Station was abandoned in 1888 due to droughts and stock losses in the 1860's

The ruins of the Kanyaka Station.

The Homestead consisted on sixteen rooms.  The walls were of stone and mortar, 

eighteen inches thick, with a galvanised iron roof. 

The earliest records show that Kanyaka Station was leased to Hugh Proby 

in 1851, who drowned in Willochra Creek just six months later.

Mr Phillips settled at Kanyaka around 1853 and managed the run.  In the early years Mr Phillips started to build the many, solid buildings, which now form the present day ruins.

Information sign at Kanyaka Station Homestead, with an old 

photograph taken in 1862 with the buildings still with roofs.

The Overseer's Cottage consisted of five rooms, with a verandah on the southern side.  

Farm buildings situated on the hillside east of the house 

consisted of a cart shed, carpenter's shop, 

a blacksmiths shed, cowshed, pig sties, 

fowl house, dog kennels and stock yards.

In 1864, 41,000 sheep were shorn on the property.  At the end of the disastrous 

drought in 1867, 20,000 sheep had died from starvation.

In 1856 Kanyaka Station was 365 square miles, 

and the rent at the time was 10/- per square mile.

The Phillips family entertained guests in the large dining room.  

It is said that the family always 'dressed' for dinner.

There was no doctor in the area, an one room was used by Mr Phillips

as a surgery - for setting broken bones, extracting teeth, or treating illness.

The station office was also the post office.  In 1862, over 23,300 letters 

were received at Kanyaka and nearly 21,600 were sent.

The Men's Kitchen were responsible for preparing and serving meals

to the many married and single station hands.  Standards station rations

typically consisted of mutton, damper and black tea.

Red river gums line the dry creek bed at Kanyaka Homestead Ruins.

It's hard to imagine what life would have been like here.  We can appreciate

the indomitable spirit of the first pioneers, both men and women, 

in the face of adversity and tragedy.

Thank you Google for the information about Kanyaka Homestead Ruins.