Kanyaka Station was a cattle and sheep station in the

Flinders Ranges The Flinders Ranges are the largest mountain range in South Australia, which starts about north of Adelaide. The ranges stretch for over from Port Pirie to Lake Callabonna. The Adnyamathanha people are the Aboriginal group who have inhabi ...

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories ...

located at Kanyaka, approximately north-north-east of

Quorn, South Australia Quorn is a small town and railhead in the Flinders Ranges in the north of South Australia, northeast of Port Augusta. At the , the locality had a population of 1,230, of which 1,131 lived in its town centre. Quorn is the home of the Flinders R ...

. along Hawker-Stirling North Road (B83)

History

The area was inhabited by

Aboriginal people Indigenous peoples are culturally distinct ethnic groups whose members are directly descended from the earliest known inhabitants of a particular geographic region and, to some extent, maintain the language and culture of those original people ...

for thousands of years before European settlement. The

traditional owners Native title is the designation given to the common law doctrine of Aboriginal title in Australia, which is the recognition by Australian law that Indigenous Australians (both Aboriginal Australian and Torres Strait Islander people) have rights ...

of the area are the

Barnggarla people The Barngarla, formerly known as Parnkalla and also known as Pangkala, are an Aboriginal people of the Port Lincoln, Whyalla and Port Augusta areas. The Barngarla are the traditional owners of much of Eyre Peninsula, South Australia. Language ...

. The name of the station is taken from the Aboriginal word thought to mean ''Place of stone''. Kanyaka Station was established as a

cattle station In Australia and New Zealand, a cattle station is a large farm ( station is equivalent to the American ranch), the main activity of which is the rearing of cattle. The owner of a cattle station is called a '' grazier''. The largest cattle stati ...

in February 1852 by Hugh Proby (1826−1852). He was born on 9 April 1826 at Stamford in Lincolnshire, England, the third son of Admiral Granville Leveson Proby (the third

Earl of Carysfort Earl of Carysfort was a title in the Peerage of Ireland. It was created in 1789 for John Proby, 2nd Baron Carysfort. The Proby family descended from Sir Peter Proby, Lord Mayor of London in 1622. His great-great-grandson John Proby represente ...

of Ireland) and Isabella Howard. He emigrated on the ship ''Wellington'', which arrived on 30 May 1851 at Port Adelaide, South Australia. The Flinders Ranges is very dry country, so it is both tragic and ironic that on 30 August 1852, Proby drowned when he was swept from his horse crossing the swollen Willochra Creek while trying to herd a mob of cattle during a thunderstorm. Aged 24, he was buried the following day. Six years later in 1858 his grave was marked with an engraved slab shipped from Britain by his brothers and sisters; it was said to weigh one and a half tons and posed a significant challenge to transport it to the grave site (see photograph below). Letters from Hugh Proby to his family in England during 1851-52 in which he describes his pioneering days establishing Kanyaka, as well as his Mookra Range run (now Coonatto station), were published in 1987 in a book. Proby's Kanyaka and Mookra Range holdings were sold to Alexander Grant. He and his brother, Frederick, settled on the Mookra Range run, which they renamed Coonatto. Under subsequent owners, and particularly under resident manager John Randall Phillips, Kanyaka station grew in size until it was one of the largest in the district with 70 families living and working there. Because of the difficulties of transport, the station had to be very self-sufficient and Kanyaka station grew to include a large homestead, cottages for workers, workshops, huts and sheds, mostly built from local stone due to limited supplies of workable local timber. The station switched from cattle to sheep, but had cows, pigs, and vegetable gardens to supply food for the residents. There was also a cemetery. Proby was not buried in the Kanyaka cemetery, as it had not yet been established at the time of his death. Severe

drought A drought is defined as drier than normal conditions.Douville, H., K. Raghavan, J. Renwick, R.P. Allan, P.A. Arias, M. Barlow, R. Cerezo-Mota, A. Cherchi, T.Y. Gan, J. Gergis, D. Jiang, A. Khan, W. Pokam Mba, D. Rosenfeld, J. Tierney, an ...

s resulted in massive losses of sheep and eventually the station was abandoned. Due to its stone construction, many of the buildings survive today as ruins and are a popular tourist attraction. Today, the ruins of the Kanyaka Station complex, including the nearby woolshed and cemetery, and the stone walling on the opposite side of the Hawker road, are located on the

South Australian Heritage Register The South Australian Heritage Register, also known as the SA Heritage Register, is a statutory register of historic places in South Australia. It extends legal protection regarding demolition and development under the ''Heritage Places Act 1993'' ...

. File:Kanyaka Station, West view 20230211 1.jpg, Abandoned Kanyaka Station homestead between

Quorn Quorn is a brand of meat substitute products, or the company that makes them. Quorn originated in the UK and is sold primarily in Europe, but is available in 14 countries. The brand is owned by parent company Monde Nissin. Quorn is sold as bo ...

and

Hawker Hawker or Hawkers may refer to: Places * Hawker, Australian Capital Territory, a suburb of Canberra * Hawker, South Australia, a town * Division of Hawker, an Electoral Division in South Australia * Hawker Island, Princess Elizabeth Land, Antarct ...

File:Kanyaka Cemetery near Quorn, Flinders Ranges South Australia (2096856678).jpg, Kanyaka Cemetery File:Kanyka Death Rock talex.jpg, Death Rock and waterhole File:Kanyaka Station 2 talex.jpg, Ruins of Kanyaka Station

References

External links

{{Commons category-inline, Kanyaka Homestead
Photos of Kanyaka Station, the cemetery and its headstones
Ghost towns in South Australia Flinders Ranges Pastoral leases in South Australia Stations (Australian agriculture) 1852 establishments in Australia Far North (South Australia)

History

See also

References

Further reading

External links