A man who found a 1.5-metre-long goanna in his backyard says the unexpected visitor gave him the fright of his life.

Eric Holland, 80, was working in his shed earlier this week when he emerged to find the goanna in his backyard in Thurgoona, near Albury in New South Wales.

"I couldn't have been more shocked if a Martian had landed," he said.

"My yellow streak started to show and I jumped back in the shed."

Mr Holland said when he re-emerged from the shed, he found the large reptile had crawled up the wall of his brick house.

"He climbed up the bricks and got under the eve and his tail was twitching and hitting on the pipe," he said.

Mr Holland managed to take a picture of the goanna, which he had printed from his digital camera.

He took the hardcopy print to the office of his local newspaper, The Border Mail.

Mr Holland, who does not own a computer, said he had been stunned by the response to his story after it was published online.

"My son called me up and said 'What's going on, dad? A girl at work said she saw you on Facebook. I can't believe it — it's gone viral.'," he said.

"I didn't think it was good enough to [be in the paper]."

Mr Holland said he had lived in his home for 18 years and had never seen a goanna as big as this one.

"It blew the cobwebs out of me," he said.

"I'll be wearing my long pants and my big boots outside, that's for sure."