A pink lake

It's a long day's driving from Geelong to Adelaide so interesting rest stops were welcome. One was at Pink Lake near Dimboola. It really is pink. There's been a bit of rain this year so the lake has water in it, but in summer, after the water has evaporated and left a salty crust, the harvesters will be scraping the surface like they used to years ago. In those days the salt was used for glazing sewage pipes and the Country Roads Board used it to put alongside of their white posts to kill the weeds. And butchers used it for pickling meat. Now Parks Victoria has given permission for a company to use it as a culinary salt because as well as being tasty the mineral content is nutritional. The pink colour is apparently a beta carotene that's produced by a live algae.

It looks very pretty but there's no way I'd be out there on a hot summer day to harvest the salt. Imagine the glare and reflected heat!