Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(Aus.) a white person’s hut or house.

1846		Bell’s Life in Sydney 11 July 4/3: Mary, with her mother, two brothers, and a sister, lived in a little gunyah on the west bank of the peaceful Nepean.
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 14 Feb. 7/4: ‘Marine, I will now retire to my gunyah.’ He then retreated, leaning heavily on the shoulder of his bodyguard.
1890		H. Lawson ‘Possum’ in Roderick (1967–9) I 82: Comin’ back we found ’im dyin’ in ’is gunyah in the scrub.
1938		X. Herbert Capricornia (1939) 16: That villainous sheep-wash tobacco she smoked / In the gunyah down by the lake.
1955		N. Pulliam I Travelled a Lonely Land (1957) 233/2: gunyah – a little cottage.
1981		P. White Flaws in the Glass 16: Once I set fire to a gunyah to show that it wouldn’t be shared with strangers.