Explore Yanga National Park, where historic woolsheds and homesteads from Australia’s pastoral past meet flourishing wetlands and river red gum forests.
Exploring the silent woolshed
The walk through the pens is considerably less terrifying than it would be for the sheep, and considerably quieter than it was two decades ago.
The shears stopped clicking at the Yanga Woolshed in 2005. Now all that’s left inside this phenomenally atmospheric building are the ghosts of the pastoral past.
Twenty years on, the sheep smell remains, and lanolin stains mark the walls. Where once 3,000 unhappy sheep and order-barking shearers filled the space, now there’s just the wind rattling the corrugated iron flaps that fill the gaps between the river red gum beams.
From Australia’s largest station to national park
Yanga Station was once the biggest freehold pastoral property in the country. Now it is one of NSW’s newest national parks.
For all the talk of preserving wetlands, river red gum forests and endangered frogs, it is the evocative relics of the station’s past that make Yanga National Park distinctive.
The homestead sits a few kilometres down the Sturt Highway from the woolshed. Sheep were once walked to the Murrumbidgee River for the waiting paddlesteamers rather than transported by road.
Wandering through history
Yanga is best approached alone, at least initially, to fully absorb the sense of discovering an abandoned ruin. Wisps of history swirl in the wind, and exploring the iron-clad buildings feels both voyeuristic and cinematic.
The smithy still has charcoal chunks and hunks of metal on the floor, while the stables now house only ants. Rusting netposts and the frayed tennis court – once the centre of the station’s social life – are left to the whims of nature.
Perished tractors, long-flat tyres, and the slowly collapsing old store sit as sentinels against the elements.
Inside the homestead: a remarkable time capsule
The cook’s cottage breaks the spell, with a surprisingly high-tech exploration of the station’s past. The Manager’s Tour ventures inside the main building.
The dining room table is set as if guests had arrived. The bookkeeper’s office contains a switchboard phone, little bottles of poison, and pigeonholes labelled “peacocks” and “rabbiters.”
The neighbouring manager’s office is frozen in time: calendars still show 2005, the then-modern computer looks clunky, and documents remain filed under permits to travel stock and permits to light fires.
When the Black family sold the property to National Parks in 2005, furniture was sold as-is and has been preserved ever since, creating a remarkable time capsule.
Yanga Lake: from drought to flourishing wetland
One major change is Yanga Lake. Originally key to grazing the surrounding saltbush plains, the lake had dried by 2005. Floods in 2010 restored it, now forming twin-lung-shaped wetlands ideal for birdwatching.
Visitors now head out in kayaks, exploring the newly revived shore while egrets hover nearby.
Pelicans perform their comically ungainly routines, interspersed with graceful glides and effortless flight.
Along the water’s edge, thin silvery-grey river red gums grow alongside older, gnarled trees – survivors of timber harvesting. As the lake has recovered, so too has the surrounding forest, allowing the land to return to its former glory.
Visiting Yanga National Park
More information: See the NSW National Parks website.
Getting there: Yanga National Park is just outside Balranald, a 430km drive from Melbourne and 838km from Sydney. It’s a logical stop on a Sydney to Adelaide road trip, and easily combined with Murray Valley National Park. Nearest airport with scheduled flights is Mildura, 169km away.
Yanga Homestead tours: Tours of the Yanga Homestead are available for $15. They’re self-guided with an audio guide. Pick the audio guide up at the Yanga National Park office.
More New South Wales travel
Other New South Wales travel stories on Planet Whitley include:
- A first time visitor’s guide to the Blue Mountains.
- Climbing Mt Kosciuszko – Australia’s highest mountain.
- Why Ballina is more than just a gateway town for Byron Bay.
- Why visit Wategos Beach in Byron Bay?
- How to get into the Sydney Opera House without buying tickets.
