Mysterious places of the planet - pink lake hiller. Pink lakes of the world: location, brief description and photo Is there a pink sea
Why is the water pink?
This question comes to mind in the first place, it is asked by almost every traveler who has visited this anomalous place. But the answer has not yet been found. Unlike other colored lakes in the world, such as Retba in Senegal and the salty pools in San Francisco Bay, the origin of Lake Hillier's pink color has not been unequivocally proven.
At first it was believed that the color was the result of paint created by organisms Dunaliella and Halobacteria that live in salt water. Another hypothesis says that the pink color is due to red halophilic bacteria. It was assumed that the reason for the pink color of the water is a combination of a certain salinity of the water and specific microorganisms. But tests conducted in 1950 did not confirm these assumptions. In subsequent years, a number of studies were also carried out, but the mystery of Lake Hiller remained unsolved, seriously disturbing the minds of scientists.
Lake location
Lake Hillier is located on the very edge of the Middle Island, it is separated from the ocean only by a small strip of eucalyptus trees surrounding the reservoir from all sides. The evergreen trees provide a great contrast to the landscape, especially against the backdrop of the pink lake.
As for the size of the lake, it cannot be said that it is large. Its width is about 600 meters. Due to its oval shape, the lake is often compared to a fabulous cake with delicious pink icing.
History of Pink Lake
The first mention of Lake Hillier dates back to 1802. British navigator and hydrographer Matthew Flinders stopped on Sredny Island and noticed unusual lake on the way to Sydney.
In the years 1820-1840, sealers and whalers stopped on the island, and at the beginning of the 20th century they began to extract salt from rose water. But the resource quickly dried up, and after 6 years, salt mining was stopped. Since then, the lake has not been used for industrial purposes.
Legend of Lake Hillier
This mysterious place has its own, very beautiful legend that explains the pink color of the water. It is known to a few sailors and rare travelers.
In the 17th century, in the waters surrounding the island, the ship fell into a severe storm and sank. The only surviving sailor was thrown onto uninhabited lands. The fight against the elements severely wounded him. Because of the broken limbs, every movement brought pain to the sailor, and the extraction of food became torture. A few weeks later, mad with pain, loneliness and hopelessness, he exclaimed: “I will sell my soul to the devil if this nightmare stops!” Then a man came out from the shade of a nearby tree with two jugs in his hands: one was blood, and the other was milk. He walked slowly to the island's small inland lake and said, “The blood will help you forget what pain is. Milk will relieve you of hunger. All you have to do is take a dip in these waters.” After that, the stranger poured the contents of the jars into the lake, which caused it to change color. The sailor, who thought he was crazy, slowly entered the suspicious rose water and dived, and when he surfaced, the strange stranger was nowhere to be found. To the surprise of the traveler, there was no trace of fractures and hunger. Later, pirates landed on this island and captured a poor sailor. In the future, the filibusters were alerted by the fact that the prisoner did not feel pain and did not need food. Considering this a bad sign, superstitious pirates threw the sailor overboard, not believing in his mystical story healing. By the way, what original name Lake “Hiller” is absolutely consonant in pronunciation English word"Healer", which translates as "Healer".
Our planet is teeming with many mystical, unknown, terrible and unusual beautiful places. Red and pink lakes are named after the color of their waters. Most often they have shades of red: pink, crimson, scarlet and closer to orange. Many of them are dangerous and inspire feelings of fear and horror.
Scientists say that the color of the lake is due to microorganisms that live in their waters.
Creepy Red Lake "Natron» (Lake Natron) in Tanzania turns all living things into stone
In Africa, on the border with Kenya, in Tanzania there is an ominous lake "Narton". Everyone who touches him turns to stone. So far, these are just careless birds.
Why do they become petrified? It's simple: the ideal alkalinity pH is from 9 to 10.5 and salt keeps the corpses in the state that you see in the photo.
But the lake cannot be called dead - it is a haven for millions of pink flamingos. Birds come here to breed. This is an ideal habitat for them: predators bypass this lake, and blue-green algae with red pigments are good for food.
How to get to Lake Natron? Kilimanjaro Airport is 50 km from Arusha. And from Arusha another 240 km. There are no special tours to this lake, but there is an item on the list of the tour to the Oldoinyo-Lengai volcano: a visit to Lake Natron. On its own, of course, it will be much more expensive. And you can also see the red lake during a safari in national park Serengeti national park) or Great rift valley(Great Rift Valley).
Bloody Red Lagoon of Colorado in Bolivia
Another reddish lake Laguna Colorado is located in Bolivia, in the town of Eduardo Avaroa on the Altiplano. This is a state park with a salt lake. The color of the water is given by borax deposits and some algae.
The lake is inhabited by the same pink flamingos. Crowds of tourists from all over the world come to see these beautiful birds and the no less beautiful shallow lake.
How to get to the Red Lagoon? You can get from the city of Tupitsa or Uyuni by jeep (300 km.). The place can be visited as part of the Andes tour.
Koyashskoye mineral lake in Crimea
Lake Koyashskoye is located near the Borisovka resort, in the Opuk Bay, in the Cimmerian steppes.
To see the beauty of the lake. Its rich pink color and whimsical stone structures in salt crystals it is worth coming to see in July-August. The water recedes and the salt is shown outward, settling on everything that it meets in its path.
How to get (get there)? From the side of Feodosia, get to Borisovka and along the dirt road - in your own transport. On the public from Kerch to Maryevka and then on foot 7km.
Red salt lake Sasyk-Sivash in Crimea
And this is another lake on the Crimean peninsula, not far from the resort of Evpatoria. Lake Sasyk-Sivash has a pink color due to the evaporation of mineral salt. During evaporation, many microalgae carotenoids appear.
The healing properties of salt have attracted tourists for a long time. It has a high content of magnesium and potassium, bromine and calcium.
Another bizarre moment with Lake Sasyk-Sivash is the “boiling of the lake”. This miracle is understandable - underwater fountains (griffins) are to blame.
How to get to Lake Sasyk-Sivash? It is possible by electric train from Evpatoria to Saki. Then take a bus to Pribrezhnoe and walk 2 km. or by car.
Salt Lake Chokra is located not far from the village of Kurortnoye on the Kerch Peninsula. It, like all of the above, has the property of water turning pinkish-red. The reason for this is unicellular algae.
Tourists tend to come here not only to stare at the lake, but also to get medical treatment for healing mud.
How to get there? By bus from Kerch to the village of Kurortnoye and 2 km. on foot.
pink lakes generally predominate in Australia. There is a large accumulation of these unusual water areas. Lake Hillier is located on the largest island of Middle Island in Western Australia.
How to get here? The problem is that the island is not inhabited, and you can see it from the window of an airplane. Although the Australian travel companies offer boat trips.
Lake Retba in Senegal
Pink Lake Retba is located near the capital of Dakar in Senegal.
Pink lake in Altai
Or rather, not one pink lake, but two. The first lake Bursol or Buturlinskoye is located in the Slavogorodsky district Altai Territory(Bursol village), 500 km. from Barnaul in the steppe. And the second one is called Raspberry Lake, located 400 km away. from the capital of Altai, next to the village of the same name Raspberry Lake.
These salty pink lakes are a great place to relax and prevent the treatment of many diseases. It is clear that the only industry here is salt mining. The pink color of the lakes is due to Artemia and nauplii.
It is better to get on your own transport or from Branaul by bus: to Raspberry Lake - to the village of Mikhailovskoye, to Buturlinskoye - to Slavgorod.
Lake Retba or Las Rose in Senegal is rightfully considered one of the most beautiful potassium permanganate lakes. It is located northeast of Dakar, the capital of Sinegal. The lake got its name in honor of special algae. Pink color is especially evident in the dry season. In addition, Lake Retba is known for its high salt content, which, like the Dead Sea, easily allows you to stay on its surface. The main source of income for local residents is salt mining on Lake Retba. The workers, forced to spend 6-7 hours in water containing about 40% salt, rub shea butter into the skin in order to prevent tissue damage.
Pink Lake Hillier in Australia
On the edge of the Middle Island - the most major island The Recherche Archipelago in Western Australia is home to a fabulous pink lake surrounded by mysteries and legends. They discovered a magical reservoir in 1812. A feature of Lake Hillier is its unusual permanent bright pink color. In the 1950s, scientists tried to discover the red algae that turns lakes pink. The attempt was unsuccessful, so the color is still a mystery. The length of the lake is only 600 meters. A narrow strip of white sand, small deposits of white salt and dense eucalyptus forests separate the lake from the ocean.
Salt lake Torrevieja (Torrevieja) in Spain
Deep pink salt lakes - Torrevieja and La Mata - surround the seaside town in southern Spain. According to World Organization health area of these lakes is the most favorable for the life and health of the population and tourists. Bathing in lakes, the density of which is not inferior to Dead Sea, is of great benefit for the prevention and treatment of skin and lung diseases. Salt is also mined for export from the lakes.
Dusty Rose Lake in Canada
A unique lake of pale pink color is located in British Columbia Canada. The lake is little known and rather mysterious. The water in the lake is not at all salty, does not contain red algae, but is pink. The color of the water is explained by the amazing combination of stone dust from the glacier. Thousands of tourists have chosen this magical place for their travels.
Pink lake in Crimea
Not only the Wild West is characterized by pink lakes. In the Crimea, it turns out, there is also a similar unique body of water. Lake Koyashskoye near Cape Opuk in the Kerch steppe several times a year acquires a rich shade of rose. According to scientists, this is due to bacteria that acquire a reddish tint in the heat, Artemia crustacean, and also Dunaliella (single-celled algae). During the hot period here, stones and plants are covered with a salt film. The area of the lake is 500 hectares, and the depth does not exceed a meter. Koyashskoye lake is the most salty in the Crimea. In addition, the reservoir is famous for its healing properties.
It would seem, what else can surprise the mainland, in which almost everything is so unusual? But Lake Hillier with bright pink water is an unsolved miracle of stunning Australian nature.
It is located in the Rechersh archipelago, on its Middle (Middle), at south coast Australia. Lake Hillier is salty and shallow, and the water in it has a juicy dense. When you fly low enough on an airplane, you get a stunning view worthy of a surrealist artist’s brush: in the middle of the island lies a bright pink oval with smooth edges, framed by a white “frame” of sea salt and dark green eucalyptus forest. The pink expanse of Lake Hillier is often compared to a giant bubblegum or glittery cake icing.
History of a miracle
Pink Lake in Australia was first mentioned in 1802 in the notes of Matthew Flinders. This famous British hydrographer and navigator made a stop at Middle Island during his voyage to Sydney.
Then whalers and hunters who lived off the southern coast of the mainland in the 30-40s of the 19th century told about this lake.
At the beginning of the last century, they decided to mine salt here, but after six years, the activity was stopped. And in the 50s, they conducted the first scientific research on an amazing color.
Now Lake Hillier, Australia, is visited by numerous tourists who want to see for themselves that it really is as pink as in the photographs.
Interesting fact
Water looks bright pink in any amount, even in a small vessel, regardless of the angle of view.
Imagine sunset as the orange sun slowly sinks into clear pink water in a soft pink Australian sky!
A little information
The dimensions of the reservoir are quite small - about 600 meters long and 200 meters wide. Amazing pink water is separated from the ocean by a sandy strip covered with a dense eucalyptus forest. Around the lake naturally appeared white ring sea salt for added contrast. Approaching the lake is quite difficult due to the dense ring that surrounds the lake. But, nevertheless, you can walk here and even swim in salty pink water!
Why is it pink?
Scientists believed that Lake Hillier owes its rich pink color to the special Dunaliella salina, which, in very salty water, emit a bright red pigment. Similar algae have been found in other pink lakes around the world.
Samples of Lake Hillier were carefully studied, but no traces of the alleged algae were found. The studies were conducted by different scientists and at different times, so there is no doubt about the reliability of the result. The color of the water is still a mystery.
Australia loves to amaze the imagination with such things, so the pink Lake Hillier has taken its rightful place among the living wonders of the local nature, along with the bright red Shark Harbor, the pinnacles desert of The Pinnacles in national park Nambung, the Bungle Bungles, Kangaroo Island, the Simpsons Desert and the Great Barrier Reef.
There is a bright pink lake in Senegal. As if potassium permanganate was poured into it. The water here is so salty that only one species of microorganisms can survive in it - they give such a color. All day long, up to my neck in the water, locals scoop salt from the bottom of the lake and pour it into the boats. The labor is hard labor, but by African standards it is paid tolerably.
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1. Amazing color water and boats, boats ... They completely cover a two-kilometer coastline Pink Lake, or Lake Retba, as it is called in the language of the Wolof people, the largest ethnic group in Senegal.
3. What today is called Lake Retba was once a lagoon. But the Atlantic surf gradually washed up the sand, and in the end the channel that connected the lagoon with the ocean turned out to be covered up. For a long time, Retba remained an unremarkable salt lake. But in the 70s of the last century, a series of droughts hit Senegal, Retba became very shallow and the extraction of salt, which lay in a thick layer at the bottom, became quite profitable.
4. Now people are working, standing shoulder-deep in water - twenty years ago they did not swim on Pink Lake, but walked - the water in it was waist-deep. But extracting about twenty-five thousand tons of salt a year, people are rapidly deepening the lake. In some places, its bottom sank quite significantly - by three meters or more.
5. The water in the lake has acquired a pink hue due to microorganisms that can exist in a saturated saline solution. Besides them, there is no other organic life in Retba - for algae, not to mention fish, such a salt concentration is detrimental. It is here almost one and a half times higher than in the Dead Sea - three hundred and eighty grams per liter ...
6. Microbiologist Bernard Oliver decided to scientifically explain the reason for such an unusual color of water. The microorganism Dunaliella salina lives in the lake, which absorbs the color of the sun and releases a pigment.
7. Due to the deepening of the bottom, it will soon be impossible to extract salt in the old-fashioned way, and the Senegalese authorities will face the problem of employing the army of miners and merchants feeding around the lake. But so far, every morning, dozens of half-naked men, taking some simple equipment, swim out to the middle of the lake, put the boat on a leash and climb into an incredibly salt water…
8. A saline solution of this concentration is capable of corroding the skin to such an extent in just half an hour that poorly healing ulcers form on it. Therefore, before getting into the boat, the miners rub themselves with oil. It is obtained from the fruits of the tallow tree, scientifically it is called Parka's butyrosperm ... It is this oil that makes their bodies shine in the sun ...
9. The salt at the bottom is first loosened, then blindly placed under water in a basket. From the basket, allowing excess water to drain, it is reloaded into a boat ... It seems that under such a weight the vessel should go to the bottom - but the dense saline solution reliably keeps it afloat. The main thing is not to forget from time to time to scoop out the water flowing from the salt from the boat. To fill such a boat with salt - here it is called a pirogue - a good worker needs three hours. For a working day, he must deliver three pirogues to the shore.
10. The men extract the salt from the bottom of the lake... This is where their participation in the process ends - all further operations are performed by women, often very young, almost girls... They drag the salt in plastic basins to the shore and dump it there to dry. This work, perhaps, is no easier than men's - a full basin pulls twenty to twenty-five kilograms ... But in Africa, few people are interested in the protection of women's and children's labor ...
11. Freshly mined grayish salt. Therefore, after letting it dry, the women wash it and sort it out to remove silt and sand... From small hills, each of which has a sign with the name of the owner stuck in it, the purified salt is poured into common heaps, stretching along the shore of Pink Lake for a three-kilometer ridge... It has been in them for a year or two is waiting for wholesale buyers - during this time the salt under the rays tropical sun has time to fade and become completely white. Salt, which is mined here by such primitive methods, is exported to African countries and, as an exotic, even to Europe. The Senegalese themselves are content with salt obtained industrially from sea water.
12. Wholesalers pay about thirty cents for a fifty-kilogram bag. The pirogue holds approximately five hundred kilograms. It turns out that for a day of hard labor, the worker receives only nine dollars. But by African standards, this is good money. Otherwise, migrant workers from neighboring countries - Mali, Guinea, Gambia, Upper Volta - would not have gone to Lake Retba ... They usually do not stay here longer than two or three years. Otherwise, you can become disabled. The Senegalese themselves look down on visiting hard workers. They earn a living by more "skilled" work - buying and reselling salt, as guides and bodyguards they accompany Europeans who come to see the miracle of nature - a lake whose water is as if stained with blood ...
13. Curious tourists strive to look into the village where the salt miners live. It is located right next to the coast. When asked what the name of this place is, the residents answer: "No way, just a village" ... No less than three thousand people live here. There are even cars on the street, old, like almost all cars in this country.
14. Workers build dwellings from improvised material - reeds growing nearby, plastic wrap, old tires ... To say about such a building "shack" means to flatter her greatly. However, in the local climate, nothing more capital is required - houses are designed to protect their inhabitants not from the cold, but from the sun, and at the end of summer - the beginning of autumn, heavy rains ...
The same car tires are used instead of well log cabins - there are four such wells in the village. In Europe, this cloudy, brackish-tasting water would probably not be used even for technical needs, but here they drink and cook food on it - there is no other. You can hardly see grazing goats around the village, although the Senegalese peasants breed them in abundance. Beans and corn are the main food of salt miners ...
The conditions in which African guest workers live can only be called terrible. But the inhabitants of these shacks themselves treat the squalor surrounding them as something completely normal. They did not live here, but came to work - from morning to night to extract salt from the Pink Lake, which these strange Europeans admire so much.
