Long-forgotten gold rush towns and deserted railroad villages pepper Australia's vast outback. Some have been meticulously preserved, frozen in time for more than a century – others have been left to the whims of Mother Nature and are nothing more than a knot of ruins. Here we reveal the eeriest Australian ghost towns you can explore for yourself.

Just a huddle of crumbling buildings and a few mouldering cars now dot Farina, an outback ghost town that lies some 370 miles (595km) north of Adelaide. It was first settled towards the end of the 1870s by farmers hoping to grow wheat here – the name Farina means flour in Latin – and ambitious plans were laid out for the town.

Farina enjoyed its heyday from 1882 to 1884, when it acted as a railhead from Port Augusta. The residents also enjoyed unusually wet weather meaning farms thrived, just as the initial settlers had hoped. At its peak Farina had a population of around 600 people, and the town included a bakery, several blacksmiths' shops, hotels, a church and a school. However, Farina's good fortune wasn't to last.

The rail line was extended and rerouted, and the region's torrid conditions also returned, with drought and dust storms ravaging the town. The copper and silver mine here closed in 1927, and by the 1930s the once-booming town was in serious decline. It was abandoned altogether by the 1980s. Today information plaques pepper the deserted buildings and sites, which include the old police station, a rail-station building and the cemetery.

This dusty New South Wales town, a stone's throw west of Broken Hill City, was once a booming mining hub. It sprang up in the early 1880s after prospectors struck silver in the region and hundreds of miners descended on the area. By the mid-1880s, some 3,000 miners had made their home here – the town had houses and businesses galore, and even its very own newspaper, the Silver Age.

But Silverton's fate matched that of many a mining town in Australia and beyond – the mines here didn't have staying power, and they'd closed by the end of the 1890s. By the beginning of the 1900s, the miners had moved on to seek their fortune elsewhere, and the town went to wrack and ruin. Today it retains just a teensy population – but it has not been forgotten.

The former mining town now draws in plenty of visitors, who come to tour the shuttered Day Dream Mine and sink a pint at the age-old Silverton Hotel. An impressive number of movies have been filmed here too, from 1960s horror Journey into Darkness to Mad Max 2 – there's even a museum dedicated to the latter. A small community of artists also practice their craft among the mouldering buildings, and travellers can duck into a number of pocket-sized galleries during their visit.

Venture around two hours northwest of Sydney and you'll happen upon Hartley, a pint-sized town on the edge of Australia's Blue Mountains. The striking courthouse here was built in 1837, and the town became a judicial hub – its importance was set to increase even further, since a railway line was planned here in the early half of the 19th century too. However, in a twist of fate, the railway line ultimately bypassed the town and its significance quickly waned.

Today, all that remains is that 19th-century courthouse, a pair of churches, and a series of other abandoned cottages and inns. Visitors can roam the deserted streets, drinking in the buildings' haunting remains, and even take a self-guided tour of the defunct courthouse. Weddings still take place at the wonderfully preserved St Bernard's Church and Presbytery too.

Now a languishing ghost town, Linda thrived towards the end of the 19th century, when the North Mount Lyell Mine was in operation. It had a somewhat debaucherous reputation, known for its serious brawls and bust-ups, and was also the terminus for the North Mount Lyell Railway, the mining company's own railroad. Unfortunately for Linda, the mine was bought out by a new company in 1903 and the town's importance immediately diminished.

Buildings and businesses began to close in the first half of the 20th century and today the only surviving symbol of this once-booming town is the decrepit Royal Hotel, which was finally abandoned in the 1950s. You can walk around its perimeter, taking in its glassless windows and gratified façade, and imagine the old inn as it once was: a place of raucousness and revelry.

A tangle of ruins are all that's left of this outback town, which lies around 230 miles (370km) north of South Australia's capital Adelaide. It was once a thriving gold-mining town, home to hundreds of people in the late-19th century. But, by the middle of the 1900s, the miners had left and the town was deserted and decaying.

There's very little of Waukaringa remaining today, but adventurous travellers are still drawn to this remote outpost. Of the small cluster of abandoned buildings, the most notable is the shell of the former Waukaringa Hotel, which finally closed for good in the 1960s. Come for these evocative ruins, and the gloriously remote location.

The teeny tiny railway town of Cook has always been small: this Trans-Australian railway stop on the Nullarbor Plain had about 50 residents at its peak, most of whom worked on the railway tracks themselves. Established in 1917, Cook flourished up until 1997, when the railways were privatised and most of its inhabitants moved on. Today it's practically a ghost town, with as little as four residents and some decrepit buildings, welcoming straggling tourists who've hopped off the train to stretch their legs. 

This smattering of buildings on Tasmania's Maria Island once made up Darlington, a former convict penal settlement and then a convict probation station between 1825 and 1850. At its highest point, the island settlement was home to almost 500 convicts, who lived and laboured here, separated from the free world.

Now visitors can take a ferry off the east coast of Tasmania to explore the site, which includes 13 wonderfully preserved structures from the island's days as a penal colony. Notable sights include the hulking commissariat store and the penitentiary. Given its historical significance, the complex is a UNESCO World Heritage site.

While Menzies – a town that grew up during the gold rush in the late 1800s – has not been entirely abandoned, you can spot decaying remnants of the region's gold-rush boom in the surrounding area. The miners who flooded here in the 19th century had all but left by 1905: today you can explore Menzies' quiet main street, then strike out to see the burned-out cars and ruined buildings that dot the stark outback.

There's another reason to visit too. Just north of Menzies and its surrounding ghost towns is the Lake Ballard salt pan, which is dotted with abstract human effigies, warped by British sculptor Antony Gormley. These stainless-steel bodies, set against the barren backdrop, add further mystery to the region.

A lone pub and this imposing water tower are really all that remains of Broad Arrow, a former mining town in Western Australia, around 25 miles (40km) north of Kalgoorlie city. Long inhabited by the Aboriginal Wangkatha people, the area saw an influx of miners in the 1890s and the population grew to more than 2,000 – by the 1920s, though, most had moved on. You can still sup a beer in the Broad Arrow Tavern, which was built back in 1896.

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This mining ghost town has been painstakingly preserved and, as such, is a popular tourist attraction today. The gold rush in the region began in the 1850s and Hill End soon sprang into existence – by the 1870s, it had bloomed into a town complete with churches, 28 pubs, loads of shops and the Royal Hotel, which is heritage-listed today. The town's population dwindled through the 20th century as gold reserves depleted, and today the remaining buildings act as a symbol of the region's mining past.

Visitors can take a self-guided tour of the historic town (just pick up a map from the visitor centre), pausing to admire intact buildings such as the general store, the post office and the Royal Hotel. For more insight into mining history, take a guided tour of the Bald Hill Tourist Mine or pore over relics from the era at the History Hill Museum. If you want to make a long weekend of it, overnight in the 1872 Royal Hotel itself.

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Hailed as the first European settlement in Central Australia – and today protected as a historical reserve – Arltunga grew out of the gold rush in the 1880s. The hundreds-strong population thrived at the tail end of the 19th century, but the town was pretty much deserted by the 1930s. Now visitors can step back into the 1800s and drift between old mining buildings, a police station and the Government Battery and Cyanide Works.

A little town in Scotland's Ayrshire gave this former mining town – and now atmospheric ghost town – its name. Some 500 people called the settlement home, after quartz reefs bearing gold were discover in 1885, and the town was soon home to a pair of mines, schools, hotels, a vast coffee palace and a hydroelectric power station. Of course, the gold dried up as quickly as it was discovered, and 1939 bush fires also destroyed a swathe of the town – by the 1930s it was a shadow of what it once was. 

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Now visitors come to explore the leafy Cassilis Historical Area, which spreads over almost 9,000 acres. You'll see rickety buildings worn by the weather, and rusting cars dotting the vegetation. Some of the most impressive remains are set around the King Cassilis Mine (pictured), which also once included a cyanide plant.

The long-abandoned remains of Kuridala's mining buildings still dominate this ghost town – the jutting chimneys of the smelter are an especially striking sight. The town quickly bloomed at the end of the 19th century after copper was discovered, and it encompassed dance halls, saloons, shops and hotels for its hundreds of residents. Eventually, the mines closed and the town was abandoned – today visitors can make the trek to see the corroding remains of this once-great town.

A small population still remains in Terowie, a once-thriving railway town of more than 2,000 people. Europeans first settled the area, long home to the Ngadjuri peoples, in the 1840s, and the town of Terowie was laid out in the 1870s. By the 1880s, the railway was built and the population burgeoned into the hundreds, and then the thousands. Terowie was home to an important stretch of track, providing links to the city of Adelaide.

But Terowie's status wasn't to last: when the railway line was extended, Terowie lost much of its significance, and began to leak residents. By the 1980s, only a handful of inhabitants remained. Now the site is designated a historic area on account of its well-preserved 19th-century buildings, which offer a glimpse into the site's past as a booming railway town. Roam the streets, looking out for buildings from a police station and the National Bank Building to bakeries and a blacksmith's shop.

Stepping into Milparinka is like stepping back in time: or into the late 1800s to be exact. Its buildings, mostly built in the late 19th century when Milparinka was a prosperous mining town, have been carefully restored, so they stand like a time capsule on the edge of the desert. The courthouse, a sunbaked brick building with a sloping roof dating to 1896, is particularly well preserved and well worth a visit – you can read about some of the town's history inside too.

Other striking remains include the crumbling post office building (pictured) and an old family home known as the Baker House. You should make time to take in the striking artwork now housed in the former police station and to have a tipple at the 1882 Albert Hotel too – the hotel is the ghost town's last remaining business.

Described as a "living ghost town", Gwalia is another of Australia's fallen mining settlements. In a familiar tale, a community of miners mushroomed here in the late 1890s after gold was discovered in the area, and the Sons of Gwalia mine was built. At its peak, the town of Gwalia had around 1,200 residents. But by the 1960s, the writing was on the wall: the mine, which had been in decline for decades, closed in 1963, and the 1,000-plus-strong population plummeted to around 40 people. 

Today visitors can wander between the deserted buildings and imagine what life would have been like when Gwalia was at its zenith. You'll see Australia's first government-owned hotel, a collection of 19th-century mining buildings and a huddle of timber, iron and hessian cottages. You can also pore over an impressive collection of relics from Gwalia's past, including photos, machinery and period furniture. 

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