Pink Lake - again!

When Nick spoke of driving to Melbourne in one day, my focus had been on the 700km distance - and sitting for such a long time on my very uncomfortable seat!  

I hadn't thought much of what we might see along the way, so the silo art was a bonus as was the realisation that we'd re-visit Pink Lake!  

We'd enjoyed our first visit so much that I'd sourced pink lake salt from a retail supplier and included samples in our Christmas mailout that year (and we used the remainder for quite some time, also).

The site had been developed further since our last visit.  There was some signage in the picnic shelter and a small laminated sheet to advise a coffee van visited at particular times (salt could be purchased as well as coffee).

We walked down to the lake first, as the only sheltered picnic table was occupied.  I hadn't intended to be colour co-ordinated with the salt but was very pleased of my kikoy sun protection.  (My kikoy was purchased in 1985 during my time in Kenya).

"That's not flamingos!"

Many years ago, I was an exchange student in Kenya - so when I read about Pink Lake, I was reminded of seeing Lake Nakuru and it's resident flamingo population. 

I was talking about them in the car as we drove away from camp. When we first spotted Dimboola's Pink Lake, Vaughan quickly commented: "that's not flamingos"!

As soon as Elmer stopped, Vaughan was out and running down the access track to the lake.  We were all quite amazed by the sight that greeted us.  It really was very neat!

There was no information board at the lake.  I've been googling though and found this link, which includes a video of an ABC Landline story about the lake and it's history of salt mining.  Commercial salt-mining had continued at the site for many years but ceased in the late 1990s.  When the story screened in 2009, a business operator had just started small-scale salt harvesting of the pink salt, to market as a gourmet food.