Ardlethan - NSW

Ardlethan, a small regional service centre, is located 490 km west of Sydney via the Hume Freeway and the Burley Griffin Way through Harden and Temora.

Its primary claim to importance is its proud role as "The Home of the Kelpie" which is celebrated with a bronze statue at the end of the town's main street. It is an amusing comment on small town competitiveness that two towns - Casterton in Victoria and Ardlethan - both lay claim to being the home of the kelpie dog. Ardlethan asserts its claim by having a bronze statue of a kelpie in Stewart Park. Casterton is home to the annual Australian Kelpie Muster. Fortunately both towns have legitimate claims. The truth is that the first kelpie was born near Casterton and the refinement of the breed occurred near Ardlethan.

Today Ardlethan is a sleepy little town with little more than a few shops and pleasant park but it boomed, albeit very briefly, when gold was discovered in the 19th century. The subsequent discovery of tin in 1912 resulted in the establishment of a tin mine which, in its heyday in the 1960s, was the largest in New South Wales. As mining declined the town became a service centre for the surrounding wheat and fat lamb properties.