Kiandra, New South Wales

Kiandra is between Talbingo and Adaminaby, 85 km north-west of Cooma in New South Wales, Australia. The place was originally called Giandara or Giandarra Plain, located in the Snowy Mountains on the Snowy Mountains Highway.

Giandara means in the language of the local Aborigines " sharp stone ". The historic gold mining town was built after the year 1859, when there was gold and found the place to several thousand inhabitants grew.

Kiandra is known as the one place in Australia, in the ski was driven for the first time. In 1974 the last residents left Kiandra because the National Park and Wildlife Service demolished most of the buildings of the city and built the site in the Kosciuszko National Park.

In the abandoned gold mining area there are numerous mines and mining equipment, historic aqueducts, buildings and an old cemetery.

History

Gold Rush

As in 1859, gold was found in a creek bed in the year incurred in Kiandra 15 hotels and 30 shops. Already in 1860 a post office was opened, and in March 1860, more than 10,000 people were working on the goldfields at Kiandra. The largest nugget was found in the area of Kiandra was 9 kg. Until 1905, according to official figures 48,676 kg of gold were mined.

In the time of the Gold Rush in Kiandra printing presses were transported to the place, and from August 24 to December 28, 1860 published nine editions of the newspaper " The Alpine Pioneer and Kiandra Advertiser ". When the gold rush in 1861 came to an end, the pressure of the newspaper has been set.

After Kiandra came from 1860 to 1925, numerous Chinese; of the 7000 people in Kiandra in 1861 were ten percent Chinese. They came as a gold digger, but also as traders, butchers, bakers, tailors or doctor. Conflicts arose, on the one hand many Chinese were employed as porters, but were paid partially or not less than agreed, on the other hand were many Europeans during harsh winter on loans from the Chinese rely. 1861 left many gold diggers Kiandra to look at the Lambing Flats gold. There is an anti-Chinese sentiment, for various reasons, such as due to lack of water and because some Chinese had luck as a gold digger developed. The Europeans attacked their camps in June and July 1861, burned their tents, the Chinese attacked and injured some seriously.

These anti-Chinese sentiment was also reflected in August 1861 in Kiandra down when the Europeans in turn set fire to some tents of the Chinese attacked the tent dwellers and expelled them from Kiandra. The Europeans formulated a petition that they addressed to the government of New South Wales in which they asked them to restrict the influx of the Chinese. In November 1861, the government passed a law to regulate the immigration of Chinese. Every Chinese person who was about to enter the British colony of New South Wales had to pay a tax in the amount of £ 10. In Kiandra was forbidden to camp the Chinese gold miners. However, they were allowed to work or to live in their own camps outside the urban area. The Chinese population fell in Kiandra from 450 in 1861 to about 150 people in 1872. During this time there were several acts of violence against Chinese in New South Wales, however, it remained peaceful in Kiandra. The anti-Chinese sentiment of the Europeans of that time culminated later, among others, in the so-called White Australia Policy.

Ski club and ski competition

Im on about 1400 meters high place Kiandra is in the winter snow, and there are quite low temperatures. With -17.8 ° C, the lowest temperature in Kiandra was measured in July 1965. The Chinese prospectors needed to Goldauswaschen water and accumulated 1882 Three Mile River with the Three Mile Dam on the New Chum Hill on. This lake, which still exists today and freezes over in the winter, is used for winter sports and is located in the Selwyn Snowfields, where skiing is driven.

In Kiandra the first ski competition was conducted in Australia and established in 1861 the world's first ski club probably: In 1861, Norwegians were a gold digger after Kiandra, the first time there were skiing in the winter.

The adventurer and writer Banjo Paterson was vice president of the Ski Club of Australia and Billy Hughes, a Prime Minister of Australia, was a member. He graduated in 1927 as one of the first multi-day ski touring skiers from Kiandra to the Hotel Kosciusko.

About the historic area, the snow and the skiing there is poetry and literature, such as by Barcroft Boake the poem about the skiing The Demon Snowshoes: A Legend of Kiandra and Klause Hueneke a book about the history ski tour Kiandra to Kosciusko and of Norman W. Clarke, the book Kiandra: gold fields to ski fields.

The ski area is no longer used today; for the winter sports area of Selwyn Snowfields, which is not far from Kiandra.

Kiandra Carnival (1900)

The Postman on his way to Kiandra

Ski race of men in Kiandra

Aboriginal

In the area of the Snowy Mountains for over 20,000 years living Aboriginesstämme with their own identity and language. The Aboriginesstamm the Wolgal or Walgalu held on to Kiandra, the Murrumbidgee River and Tumut River, south of Tintaldra and northeast of Queanbeyan. The native Aborigines of the Snowy Mountains talked Ngarigo and Wolgal were related to them. The territory of Ngarigo extended 200 km north and south of the Snowy Mountains beyond and 120 km further east of Mount Kosciuszko.

Prior to European colonization came to the times in which the Bogong moths were in the caterpillar stage, more than a thousand of that time about 25,000 people living in New South Wales Aborigines in the Snowy Mountains. The caterpillars were an important food source; they were roasted in hot sand and ashes and eaten in one piece.

The Aborigines were displaced by European settlement and in 1877 was by a government official a Aboriginesgruppe on the goldfields of Kiandra seen, was addicted to opium. The " last Aborigines of the Snowy Mountains » died in 1916 in the area of Cooma.