Yanga National Park, NSW: What can I see at the Yanga Homestead?

The Yanga Homestead in the Yanga National Park near Balranald, New South Wales, is a reminder of historic sheep station life. Self-guided tours show the abandoned hub of the giant Yanga Station pastoral property, frozen in time.

The Yanga Station was once the biggest freehold pastoral property in Australia. Now it is one of the newest national parks in New South Wales. The old sheep station on the Murrumbidgee River near Balranald is now somewhere to enjoy nature. But preserving wetlands, river red gum forests and endangered frogs aren’t what make Yanga National Park distinctive. You come here for the furiously evocative relics of that pastoral past.

Self-guided tours of the Yanga Homestead in Yanga National Park

The Yanga Homestead stands a few kilometres down the Sturt Highway from the riverside woolshed.

It’s a place, initially at least, best approached alone. That way, there’s no-one to dilute that sense of stumbling across an abandoned ruin. Wisps of history swirl around in the wind. Gingerly snooping inside the iron-clad buildings feels both satisfyingly voyeuristic and something a doomed idiot would do in a horror film.

Yanga Homestead remains on Yanga Station

The smithy at the Yanga Homestead still has charcoal chunks and hunks of metal on the floor. The only animals in the stables are ants. The rusting netposts and forlorn, frayed net of the tennis court – once the centre of the station’s social life – decay at the whim of nature.

Perished tractors, tyres long flat, stand guard. The old store sits teetering on its minor clifftop, slowly losing its battle against the elements and gravity.

It takes the cook’s cottage to break the spell. Inside, there’s a surprisingly high tech exploration of the station’s past. And the ‘Manager’s Tour’ ventures inside the main building. Here, the dining room table is set as it would have been when guests came round. The bookkeeper’s office brims with detail. There’s a gorgeous old switchboard phone apparently installed by the nephew of Alexander Graham Bell. Little bottles of poison still stand on the shelves. And pigeonholes are labelled “peacocks” and “rabbiters”.

Yanga National Park: The Yanga Homestead in 2005

The neighbouring Yanga Station manager’s office is frozen in time too. The calendars still say 2005 and the then-modern computer looks clunkily old. Documents remain filed under “permits to travel stock” and “permits to light fires”.

When the Black family sold the property to the New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Service in 2005, they were based in England. The family had little sentimental attachment to the furniture. So it was sold as-is. And has been kept that way in what will eventually prove to be a most remarkable time capsule.

Visiting Yanga National Park

The Yanga Homestead is managed by the New South Wales Parks and Wildlife Service. It costs $15 for the audio guide if you wish to take a self-guided tour. It’s one of the best stops on the drive from Sydney to Adelaide, or the equally dull Adelaide to Canberra drive.

The Yanga National Park also makes a good inclusion on a Murray River road trip, sandwiched in the leg between Echuca or Swan Hill and Mildura. Do the Gunbower Island Forest Drive in the wildlife-packed Gunbower National Park on the way, and it’s a full day out.

Alternatively if you hire a car in Mildura, or drive to Mildura from Adelaide, Yanga is one of several national parks that make a good day trip. From Mildura, you can take a tour to the Hattah Lakes in the Hattah-Kulkyne National Park. Alternatively, there’s the Murray Sunset National Park – good for pink lakes and camping – and the hugely significant historic site of the Mungo National Park.