This ‘ghost town’ is home to 17 people. It needs more locals, but they aren’t coming
Exclusive: More people are buried under the ground in Walhalla than there are living above it.
The gold rush-era Victorian town has just 17 full-time residents and is known colloquially among tourists as a “ghost town”, despite it being just a 2.5-hour drive from Melbourne.
But Michael Leaney is no ghost.
Michael Leaney has lived in Walhalla since 1998 and is the longest-residing resident. Michael Leaney
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Leaney is the longest-tenured resident after moving in before the town even had working electricity and establishing Walhalla’s Star Hotel in 1998.
“There was nowhere to eat. There was nowhere to stay. It was a very, very different town,” Leaney told nine.com.au.
“There was a population of 13 of us when the electricity was connected. There are none of the other 13 people in town today.”
Over a century before Leaney stumbled upon misty Walhalla, tucked away in Gippsland’s alpine country, around 4000 people called it home.
That number slowly dwindled as the gold rush boom faded.
Now, 1300 people are buried on a steep hill at Walhalla Cemetery while the town struggles to keep more than 20 full-time residents.
Living in Walhalla for the past three decades has been akin to being in a time warp.
Mobile phone coverage only came to the town in 2019.
Leaney – who once served as mayor of Baw Baw Shire, the council that serves Walhalla – has watched on curiously as the town became a tourist goldmine but failed to attract new locals.
“There are very few houses, and of the houses that are here, most of them are either weekenders owned by people in Melbourne or short-stay accommodation,” Leaney said.
Walhalla's Star Hotel is one of the few options for accommodation in the town. Michael Leaney
The Star Hotel, a boutique guesthouse with 12 rooms and a restaurant, is one of the few places to stay in Walhalla.
And the Walhalla Lodge Hotel, known affectionately as The Wally Pub, is the last licensed hotel in the town.
Ideally, Walhalla will grow to attract more young families and business owners.
Leaney said his town needs about double the number of residents to thrive.
It’s not quite that simple.
There was nowhere to eat. There was nowhere to stay. It was a very, very different town.
Walhalla has some of the strictest heritage controls, including sewerage and bushfire management constraints.
A report released by the Baw Baw Shire Council in 2023 noted residents complained that “construction of new dwellings is almost impossible” in Walhalla.
“Provision of infrastructure is complicated within Walhalla, with its remoteness, stringent bushfire management and heritage controls concurrently applying to all land, and often unclear land tenure status,” the report states.
The Wally Pub is the only pub in town. Google Maps
“We would not get a permit [for the Star Hotel] if we put in an application today,” Leaney said.
“Because the rules that applied back in 1996, 1997, when we applied, are very different to what they are today, and it would not be viable, and we couldn’t build it.
“I’ve been here for 28 years. And the last big development that occurred in Walhalla was the Star Hotel in 1998.”
Leaney is concerned that Walhalla’s population may shrink to below double figures by the 2030s.
“Ideally, for the town to be viable, it probably needs to have the population doubled. It needs to be about 40… 40 people would make it so much easier, but that’s easier said than done,” he added.
“But no-one is going to invest and spend money on a cottage or a building in Walhalla, where the sewerage system alone is like a quarter of the cost of construction.”
Tourists flood the Victorian town during weekends and peak periods. But it's a ghost town during the week. Supplied
Charm keeps weekend visitors flooding in
Tourism is what keeps the historic township alive.
Walhalla has a rich history and its mountain charm attracts around 100,000 visitors per year.
The spooky town is famed for its ghost tours, which are held every Saturday night.
Trainloads of starry-eyed weekend visitors from Melbourne clog the town on Saturdays and Sundays, but Leaney said you can “shoot a gun down the street on a weekday, and you wouldn’t hit a soul”.
“We are 100 per cent reliant on tourism for our economy,” Leaney explained.
“But we need to have tourism in a manageable way. We need to lower the peaks and raise the troughs.
“Our challenge in Walhalla is lifting our midweek trade and easing out, evening out the spread of tourists.”
The mountain town is ready and waiting for weekday visitors. They just aren’t coming.
And Leaney said this problem is felt by tourist towns around regional Victoria.
“Why is it that tourism [towns] are expected to be profitable for just two days a week?” he added.
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