60 pieces · NaturePhoto by Yodaobione, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Aerial view of Lake Hillier on Middle Island, Recherche Archipelago, off the south coast of Western Australia — a small saline lake of saturated bubblegum-pink water, separated from the dark blue Southern Ocean by a narrow strip of sand dunes covered in paperbark and eucalyptus woodland, with a pale rim of salt crust visible along the shore.
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Lake Hillier, Australia's Bubblegum-Pink Lake
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Lake Hillier, Australia's Bubblegum-Pink Lake
Lake Hillier sits on Middle Island, the largest of the many islands and islets making up the Recherche Archipelago off the south coast of Western Australia, near the town of Esperance. It is a small lake, only about 600 metres long and 250 metres wide, but from the air its colour is unmistakable: a flat, saturated bubblegum pink that holds steady from shore to shore. A narrow strip of vegetated sand dunes separates the lake's northern edge from the open coast, so the view in this photograph places two bodies of water side by side — the pink lake and the ordinary dark blue of the Southern Ocean — with only a thin band of paperbark and eucalyptus woodland between them.
The colour comes from what lives in the water rather than from any mineral or dye. Lake Hillier is heavily saline, and that salinity supports the microalga Dunaliella salina along with red halophilic bacteria that produce the pigment bacterioruberin in the salt crusts around the shore — together they tint the brine pink. The effect is not a surface sheen: a sample of the water keeps its colour even after being scooped into a container and carried away from the lake, which is part of why the colour was remarked on from the very first European sighting. It is also not perfectly constant — heavy rainfall can dilute the brine and dull the pink for a time, with the colour returning as evaporation concentrates the salt again.
As a jigsaw, the photograph splits cleanly into three zones, which makes it a good one to sort before you start connecting pieces. The pink lake is the simplest block — near-uniform colour with only subtle tonal shifts, so group those pieces first by any faint texture or shoreline curve rather than by shade. The ocean is a second, separate block of dark blue that will not share pieces with the pink water no matter how similar two edges look in isolation. The dividing strip of dunes and woodland is the narrowest zone but the most useful one: its ragged green-and-tan edge is the most irregular shape in the frame, and locking it into place first gives you a fixed boundary to build the two colour fields out from.
How to play
- Tap Play Lake Hillier, Australia's Bubblegum-Pink Lake puzzle to open the puzzle board, then choose your piece count and difficulty.
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- Use the Preview button on the play screen to peek at the full reference image whenever you need a hint.
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Frequently asked questions
- What causes Lake Hillier's pink colour?
- The colour comes from organisms adapted to the lake's very high salt content: the microalga Dunaliella salina, which produces a red-toned pigment under salty, sunlit conditions, along with red halophilic bacteria living in the salt crusts around the shore. Scientists who have run metagenomic surveys of the lake have also found several other salt-loving microorganisms, but Dunaliella salina and the halophilic bacteria are considered the main sources of the pink tint. The colour is not a surface effect — water taken from the lake in a container keeps its pink colour.
- Can you visit Lake Hillier up close, or even swim in it?
- There is no regular way to reach the lake itself. Middle Island lies within the Recherche Archipelago Nature Reserve, and scenic boat cruises that pass the area generally do not land there. The most common way to see Lake Hillier is from the air: scenic flights depart several times a day from Esperance Airport and fly over the lake and the nearby Cape Le Grand National Park coastline. Despite its high salt content, comparable to the Dead Sea, the lake itself is considered safe to swim in — the practical obstacle is simply getting there, not the water.
- Who named Lake Hillier, and when was it first recorded?
- The explorer Matthew Flinders and his crew visited Middle Island in January 1802, and Flinders's journal entry describing a small rose-coloured lake is the first written record of it. The lake is reported to have later been named after William Hillier, a crew member of Flinders's ship HMS Investigator who died of dysentery in May 1803, shortly before the expedition left Middle Island. In the late 19th century, a short-lived operation also tried to mine salt from the lake for sale.
- Does the lake's pink colour ever fade?
- Yes — the intensity of the colour depends on how concentrated the salt in the water is. Periods of heavy rain can dilute the brine and noticeably soften the pink, while dry spells that let the water evaporate and the salt re-concentrate tend to bring the deeper bubblegum colour back. The underlying cause, the salt-loving organisms in the water, does not go away; what changes is simply how saline the lake is at any given time.