{"id":772989,"date":"2026-07-01T22:40:14","date_gmt":"2026-07-01T22:40:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/772989\/"},"modified":"2026-07-01T22:40:14","modified_gmt":"2026-07-01T22:40:14","slug":"walhalla-this-ghost-town-is-home-to-17-people-its-oldest-resident-said-the-population-needs-to-double-for-it-to-survive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/772989\/","title":{"rendered":"Walhalla: This \u2018ghost town\u2019 is home to 17 people. Its oldest resident said the population needs to double for it to survive"},"content":{"rendered":"

Exclusive: More people are buried under the ground in Walhalla<\/a> than there are living above it.<\/p>\n

The gold rush-era Victorian<\/a> town has just 17 full-time residents and is known colloquially among tourists as a \u201cghost town\u201d,<\/a> despite it being just a 2.5-hour drive from Melbourne.<\/a><\/p>\n

But Michael Leaney is no ghost.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Michael Leaney has lived in Walhalla since 1998 and is the longest-residing resident.\u00a0Michael Leaney<\/p>\n

Do you have a story? Contact\u00a0reporter April Glover at\u00a0april.glover@nine.com.au<\/a><\/p>\n

Leaney is the longest-tenured resident after moving in before the town even had working electricity and establishing Walhalla\u2019s Star Hotel in 1998.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was nowhere to eat. There was nowhere to stay. It was a very, very different town,\u201d Leaney told nine.com.au<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a population of 13 of us when the electricity was connected. There are none of the other 13 people in town today.\u201d<\/p>\n

Over a century before Leaney stumbled upon misty Walhalla, tucked away in Gippsland\u2019s alpine country, around 4000 people called it home.<\/p>\n

That number slowly dwindled as the gold rush boom faded.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Now, 1300 people are buried on a steep hill at Walhalla Cemetery while the town struggles to keep more than 20 full-time residents.<\/p>\n

Living in Walhalla for the past three decades has been akin to being in a time warp.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mobile phone coverage only came to the town in 2019.<\/p>\n

Leaney \u2013 who once served as mayor of Baw Baw Shire, the council that serves Walhalla \u2013 has watched on curiously as the town became a tourist goldmine but failed to attract new locals.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere 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,\u201d Leaney said.<\/p>\n

\"Michael<\/p>\n

Walhalla’s Star Hotel is one of the few options for accommodation in the town.\u00a0Michael Leaney<\/p>\n

The Star Hotel, a boutique guesthouse with 12 rooms and a restaurant, is one of the few places to stay in Walhalla.<\/p>\n

And the Walhalla Lodge Hotel, known affectionately as The Wally Pub, is the last licensed hotel in the town.<\/p>\n

Ideally, Walhalla will grow to attract more young families and business owners.<\/p>\n

Leaney said his town needs about double the number of residents to thrive.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not quite that simple.<\/p>\n

There was nowhere to eat. There was nowhere to stay. It was a very, very different town.<\/p>\n

Michael Leaney, owner of Walhalla\u2019s Star Hotel<\/p>\n

Walhalla has some of the strictest heritage controls, including sewerage and bushfire management constraints.<\/p>\n

A report released by the Baw Baw Shire Council in 2023 noted residents complained that\u00a0 \u201cconstruction of new dwellings is almost impossible\u201d in Walhalla.<\/p>\n

\u201cProvision 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,\u201d the report states.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The Wally Pub is the only pub in town.\u00a0Google Maps<\/p>\n

\u201cWe would not get a permit [for the Star Hotel] if we put in an application today,\u201d Leaney said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause 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\u2019t build it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been here for 28 years. And the last big development that occurred in Walhalla was the Star Hotel in 1998.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leaney is concerned that Walhalla\u2019s population may shrink to below double figures by the 2030s.<\/p>\n

\u201cIdeally, for the town to be viable, it probably needs to have the population doubled. It needs to be about 40\u2026 40 people would make it so much easier, but that\u2019s easier said than done,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Tourists<\/p>\n

Tourists flood the Victorian town during weekends and peak periods. But it’s a ghost town during the week.\u00a0Supplied<\/p>\n

Charm keeps weekend visitors flooding in<\/p>\n

Tourism is what keeps the historic township alive.<\/p>\n

Walhalla has a rich history and its mountain charm attracts around 100,000 visitors per year.<\/p>\n

The spooky town is famed for its ghost tours, which are held every Saturday night.<\/p>\n

Trainloads of starry-eyed weekend visitors from Melbourne clog the town on Saturdays and Sundays, but Leaney said you can \u201cshoot a gun down the street on a weekday, and you wouldn\u2019t hit a soul\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are 100 per cent reliant on tourism for our economy,\u201d Leaney explained.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut we need to have tourism in a manageable way. We need to lower the peaks and raise the troughs.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur challenge in Walhalla is lifting our midweek trade and easing out, evening out the spread of tourists.\u201d<\/p>\n

The mountain town is ready and waiting for weekday visitors. They just aren\u2019t coming.<\/p>\n

And Leaney said this problem is felt by tourist towns around regional Victoria.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy is it that tourism [towns] are expected to be profitable for just two days a week?\u201d he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Exclusive: More people are buried under the ground in Walhalla than there are living above it. The gold…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":772990,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[64,63,99],"class_list":["post-772989","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/772989","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=772989"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/772989\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/772990"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=772989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=772989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=772989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}