Mount Drysdale, New South Wales

Mount Drysdale is a ghost town in the Orana region of New South Wales, Australia.

It lies within the locality of Tindarey, named after the original pastoral holding from which the village site was excised.

[4] The site lies west of Yanda Creek, an ephemeral tributary of the Darling River.

[8] It lies 40 km east-north-east of the Mount Grenfell rock art site, an important Ngiyampaa Wangaaypuwan Aboriginal place.

[9] Settlers took over the area now known as Mount Drysdale, as part of the 'Tindarey' (or 'Tindeyrey') pastoral leasehold that was notified in July 1885.

[11] Settler records show that there were Aboriginal people still living on the 'Tindarey' sheep station in late 1885.

[12] It seems that there was frontier violence—probably including a massacre of local people by settlers in the Mount Drysdale area, either during the 1880s[13] or in 1899[14][15]—the earlier period seems more likely.

[2] In late 1894, there were around 400 miners working on the field[26] and land was reserved for the village's public buildings.

Mining was suspended, probably as early as mid 1911,[37] and, in March 1913, it was resolved to wind up the Mt Drysdale company.

[53] There was a smaller, neighbouring village known as Drysdale West[3]—proclaimed in November 1894[10]—but it seems to have not lasted long and its design was cancelled in 1922.

[30] In late 1934, voting took place at a private residence, suggesting that the post office had closed by then.

[63] Cobar Shire advertised for sale 20 allotments in the old village, to recover rates that had not been paid by their long-absent or deceased owners, in 2006.

McKell Street still appears on maps, now at the locality of Tindarey, as do many allotments of the former Mount Drysdale village.

[67][15][68] The 'Mine Tank', an in-ground water storage once used by the mines, still exists,[69] as do remnants of the market garden;[55][70] all lie to the north of the village on the far side of the hill close to the site of West Drysdale.