Week 9 – Moon walking in the pink

Week 9 -Pink Lake – Lochiel Reserve

Western Highway, 8km west of Dimboola

Distance – 3.5 km around the lake

10 words – Moonscape, salt is art, stark, beautiful, no water little sun

Sunrise sounds like the perfect time to experience the full blast of Pink Lake’s brilliant colour.

The 45ha salt lake sits just off the highway about 10km west of Dimboola and has gained social media notoriety after passing travellers photographed it looking particularly pretty in pink

But today I might as well be shooting in black and white. The sunrise disappoints as low clouds gobble up just about every hint of blue, red and yellow.

The virtually dry lake feels almost alien. A bit like a beach but without wind, water, waves or people – and with a touch of moonscape and apocalypse thrown in.

On the upside it is cool, quiet and the perfect temperature to do a quick walk around its salty edge.

Salt makes this place special and apparently a bacteria in the salt makes it pink.

Commercial salt harvesting began in the 1860s and continued till the 1970s but I would imagine first nations people have well known its value for 1000s of years before that.

In more recent times local olive growers have teamed with Traditional Owners to annually undertake a harvest and Pink Lake Salt is a popular product in homes and restaurants around the nation.

I have a faint recollection also being told a story by a local that renowned Australian artist Sidney Nolan would also head out to the lake and paint when, as a young man, he was stationed in the West Wimmera for a couple of years during World War II.

I could not find a 1940s painting of ‘Pink Lake’ by Nolan but did find one of Wimmera salt lakes created 20 years later in the 1960s.

Knowing his fascination with the unique Landscape it would not be surprising that this colourful gem caught his eye.

Today it is no oil vibrant painting but it’s quiet and sobre mood will suffice.

In the words of Buzz Aldrin it still presents us with “magnificent desolation”.

As the sun rises we start to see hints of a dull salmon layer stretching as far as the eye can see.

Interestingly the lake’s edge is grey clay and it appears the local kangaroos have almost been bogged in its sticky depths. Their usual thin spiky prints are several centimetres deep in some spots.

We see footprints from other visitors, human and animal but there are no animals and few birds to be seen or heard.

The other thing we notice is the wall of salt paperbark (I think) that grows thick and strong around the lake edge.

In places contorted, grey branches from dead trees lay abandoned like the bones from a carcass, a dusting of salt ensuring their stark presence will be felt for some time to come.

At one point we also see a few tiny pools of water seeping through the sea of salt.

Boring old water is pretty mundane compared to the rich textures, curves and colours that start to emerge in the salt.

Sometimes the salty compositions resemble a river meandering through the horizontal landscape and other times a vein pumping sodium chloride instead of blood.

Dark splats among the lines remind me of a John Olsen painting –another artist beguiled by Wimmera’s big skies and landscape.

Big salt-encrusted logs of inland driftwood create a dramatic composition on the lake edge and a line of decaying posts draw your eye into the centre.

Looking away for the lake toward the saltbush we’re reminded of just how clever nature can be.

Thriving in what looks like a wasteland are tiny worm-like succulents that mimic the colours of the lake – soft hues of pink and grey and jade.

In places the salt sits in curved layers along the shoreline, like a receding wave. Something hard to comprehend when there is no water.

But that is the thing about pink lake. It is just so different. A salty moonscape with alien colours, plants and atmosphere.

After an hour’s exploring we are back where we started and at the car.

No salt just blonde paddocks in all directions and the earthly sounds traffic flowing along the busy Western Highway. We’ve arrived back in familiar Wimmera.

Our mission to explore Pink Lake is accomplished. And a worthwhile journey it has been.

Or to quote Buzz again – “It is an interesting place to be. I would recommend it.”

Update – September 2021

Just to let you know Pink Lake does get water and this is what it looks like. I was driving past this weekend and grabbed a couple of quick images of Pink Lake with water. ENJOY!