Lake Hillier: Australia’s Pink Lake on Middle Island, Western Australia

Lake Hillier is the bubblegum-pink lake on Middle Island, the largest island of the Recherche Archipelago off Western Australia’s south coast. From the air it looks unreal: a pink oval about 600 metres long, ringed by white salt and dark green forest, with only a thin strip of sand dunes between it and the deep blue Southern Ocean.

Why Lake Hillier is pink

The colour comes from life, not chemicals. Lake Hillier is a hypersaline lake, far saltier than the sea, and only a few organisms thrive in it. The best known is the microalga Dunaliella salina, which stores so much β-carotene that it looks orange-red; the pigment helps shield it from intense sunlight. Research at Lake Hillier has found several Dunaliella species and other salt-loving (halophilic) microbes, most of them with pink to salmon pigments, so the colour is a joint effort.

Lake Hillier’s water stays pink even when scooped into a container. The lake covers about 15 hectares, roughly 600 metres by 250 metres.

A lake that can lose its colour

The pink depends on salinity, sunlight, algae and rainfall, and it can fade. After a major rainfall event in 2022, fresh water diluted the lake and it lost its bright pink, according to Tourism Western Australia. Scientists expect the colour to return as the water becomes salty again, though nobody can predict exactly when.

The same thing has happened on the mainland: Esperance’s own Pink Lake (Lake Spencer) has not shown its trademark colour for more than a decade and now looks white or soft grey. Check recent photos before planning a trip around the colour.

History: Matthew Flinders and a failed salt mine

The first written record of the lake comes from the expedition of the British navigator Matthew Flinders, who noted it on 15 January 1802 while charting Australia’s south coast. The lake was named after William Hillier, a crew member who died of dysentery during the voyage.

In 1889 Edward Andrews and his sons tried to mine salt from the lake. The venture lasted about a year before it was abandoned; among the problems was salt that proved unfit for eating. Today the lake lies within the Recherche Archipelago Nature Reserve and has been recognised as a wetland of subregional significance since 2002.

How to see Lake Hillier

The coastal town of Esperance is the base for every visit. Scenic flights from Esperance Airport are the most common way to see the lake, and pilots also show off the region’s other salt lakes and the islands of the archipelago, adjusting routes when a lake fades. Boat cruises around the islands offer a view from the water. Tours generally do not land on Middle Island, and there is no regular service to it.

For a guaranteed pink lake, many travellers also head to Hutt Lagoon near Port Gregory, about five and a half hours’ drive north of Perth. Its 70 square kilometres are tinted by the same alga and usually look pinkest in the morning.

More striking lakes on Snow Addiction: beautiful crater lakes of the world and frozen Lake Baikal, the world’s deepest lake.

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• Abraham Lake’s Ice Bubbles: Layers beneath the Surface
• Stunning Snow Patterns by Simon Beck (Snow Art)
• A Guide to Snowflakes: Plates, Dendrites, Columns and Rime
• Matthew Albanese’s Strange Worlds: Landscapes Made in Miniature

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