Lake Hillier in 3D: See Australia's Pink Lake From Above

A flat pink oval on a granite island off Western Australia, held apart from a deep blue ocean by one thin bar of sand. Here is how to explore Lake Hillier in 3D, right from your iPhone.

Lake Hillier lies on Middle Island, the largest of the granite islands scattered off the south coast of Western Australia in the Recherche Archipelago. From the air it is an oval of flat pink, the colour of chewed bubblegum, held apart from the Southern Ocean by a belt of dark scrub and a thin bar of white sand. The two blues and the one pink sit side by side with nothing to soften the join.

Getting there is the problem. Middle Island is a nature reserve with no jetty, no road and no accommodation, and landing is restricted. Esperance, the nearest town, is a long drive southeast of Perth, and from there the reliable way to see the lake is a scenic flight that only goes up when the wind allows. Boats reach the archipelago, but from sea level the pink barely registers at all.

Which is the argument for looking from above first. In 3D you can hold the lake, the sandbar and the ocean in one frame, turn the island around, and see the geometry that makes the photographs work.

What makes Lake Hillier special

The colour is not a trick of light or a passing bloom. Lake Hillier is intensely salty, far saltier than the sea beside it, and that supports organisms that thrive where almost nothing else can. Algae of the genus Dunaliella produce carotenoid pigments, the same family of compounds that make carrots orange, and salt-loving bacteria and archaea add red tones of their own. Analyses of the water have found a whole microbial community rather than a single culprit.

The practical consequence is that the pink stays. Scoop the water into a bottle and it remains pink, which is not true of every pink lake: some of the better-known ones in Australia shift with rainfall and evaporation, and can be plain grey when you arrive.

Human history here is thinner than you might expect. Matthew Flinders recorded the lake in 1802 while charting this coast, climbing the island's high point to look down on it. A short-lived attempt to work it for salt came and went late in the nineteenth century, and the island has been largely left alone since.

How to explore Lake Hillier in 3D

Here is where MAPAS earns its place. Almost nobody sees this landscape from the ground, so the aerial view is not a substitute for the real thing. It is the correct view.

Start overhead, then tilt, and the flat oval becomes a basin with a rim. For a first run, try this order:

1. Search for Lake Hillier, Western Australia and switch to 3D, looking straight down until the whole island fits the screen.
2. Tilt from the north so the lake, the woodland belt, the sandbar and the open ocean stack up in one view.
3. Rotate around the lake to see how narrow the strip between pink water and blue water really is.
4. Zoom out over the Recherche Archipelago to take in the granite islands the flights cross on the way out.
5. Fly back to Esperance and step into live Street View along the coast road at Twilight Beach and out toward Cape Le Grand.
6. Use GPS navigation to plan the drive to the beaches you want on the days a flight is grounded.

There is no street-level coverage on Middle Island itself, only imagery from above, which is exactly what the place demands.

Beyond Middle Island

• Cape Le Grand National Park — Lucky Bay's white sand and the granite bulk of Frenchman Peak, east of Esperance.
• Great Ocean Drive — the loop west of town past Twilight Beach and the headland wind farm.
• Woody Island — the one island in the archipelago set up for day visitors, reached by boat from Esperance.
• Cape Arid National Park — remoter coast and heathland further east, quiet even in summer.
• Duke of Orleans Bay — a string of sheltered bays and clear water around Wharton Beach.

Why the pink needs height

Standing at a shoreline you look through a shallow layer of water at a low angle and mostly see the sky reflected back. From directly above you look down through the entire water column and the salt crust beneath it, and the pigment adds up. That single difference is why nearly every image of Lake Hillier was taken from an aircraft.

The 3D view makes a second thing clear that photographs crop away. The lake does not sit on an open plain. It lies in a shallow basin ringed by dense paperbark and eucalyptus, and that dark green band is what gives the pink its edge; remove it and the colour would look washed out. Tilting the camera also shows how the lake sits in a shallow basin below the wooded rise that runs along the island.

Before you go

Esperance is most of a day's drive southeast of Perth, or a short flight. The town holds the accommodation, the airport and the operators; there is nothing on Middle Island.

This coast is exposed and the weather turns quickly. The southern summer, December to February, brings the calmest conditions and the high sun that shows the colour best; winter brings fronts off the Southern Ocean that will cancel a flight. Midday light beats early morning here, the opposite of the usual landscape advice.

Respect the reserve status. These islands matter for seabirds and sea lions, and operators keep their distance for good reason. On Woody Island or the mainland beaches, take everything out with you.

Common questions

Is Lake Hillier always pink?

Yes, in the sense that the colour is permanent rather than seasonal. How pink it looks on a given day still depends on cloud, sun angle and how much water the lake is holding.

Can you swim in Lake Hillier?

In practice, no. The water itself is not considered harmful, but the island is a protected reserve without public landing, so the lake is looked at rather than entered.

Is MAPAS free to use?

Yes. It is free on the App Store, needs no sign-up before you start exploring, and works on iPhone and iPad.

Some places are best understood at eye level. This one is not. Lake Hillier makes sense from above, where the pink, the trees, the sand and the ocean line up in the order that made it famous.

Open MAPAS, look straight down on Middle Island, then tilt until the Southern Ocean comes into the frame.