Kiandra Gold

A very accurate and well-researched history of Kiandra in the 1860/61 gold rush interwoven with fictional characters. 

In the summer of 1859, James leaves his sweetheart, Sally, to seek adventure as a stockman in the Snowy Mountains high country. Before the summer is over the Kiandra gold rush has broken and his life has taken a direction he could never have foreseen.

The Snowy River Diggins at Kiandra saw one of the shortest but most turbulent rushes in Australia's gold rush history. For a brief period, Kiandra became the haunt of some of Australia's most notorious bushrangers, including Frankie Gardiner and was renowned for lawlessness and robberies that it was dubbed Mount Rascal.

James falls in with a young radical. Davy Hughes who provokes the ire of the Boys and commissioner Cooper by challenging their authority and championing against injustice. The arrival of Kitty McCrae changes Davy's and James's lives forever. Sally joins the three of them briefly for Summer before the events of the following spring bring tragedy.