Qualla: Lake MacDonnell https://qualla.com/lake-macdonnell en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:26 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/q/f/q/9/lake-macdonnell-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Lake MacDonnell https://qualla.com/lake-macdonnell Lake MacDonnell: Introduction https://qualla.com/lake-macdonnell/ Photo credit Tentotwo, CC BY-SA 3.0. From the air it looks like a paint spill no one cleaned up: a lake of brilliant, saturated pink lying flat against the dun-coloured plain near Penong. Lake MacDonnell is one of the most intensely coloured of all Australia's pink lakes, and the strangeness only deepens up close. Drive the causeway that splits it and the water on one side glows bubblegum pink while the other shades to green, the two halves separated by nothing more than a narrow band of road. There is no filter, no trick. The colour is alive.

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Image: Tentotwo | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/q/f/q/9/lake-macdonnell-wp/qfq9-lake-macdonnell-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Lake MacDonnell: Why the Water Turns Pink https://qualla.com/lake-macdonnell/ Photo credit Alexander Macduff, CC0. The pink is biology, not mineral. Lake MacDonnell is a salt lake, and in its dense brine lives a microscopic alga called Dunaliella salina, along with salt-loving microbes known as halobacteria. Under intense sun and extreme salinity, these organisms produce huge quantities of be...

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Image: Alexander Macduff | CC0

]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/q/f/q/9/lake-macdonnell-wp/qfq9-lake-macdonnell-why-the-water-turns-pink.mp3 0:06 2 full Lake MacDonnell: A Mountain of Gypsum https://qualla.com/lake-macdonnell/ Photo credit Alexander Macduff, CC0. What makes Lake MacDonnell spectacular from above makes it valuable from below. The lakebed sits atop the largest gypsum deposit in the southern hemisphere - an immense body of calcium sulphate that may hold somewhere between 500 and 700 million tonnes spread across roughly 87 sq...

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Image: Alexander Macduff | CC0

]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/q/f/q/9/lake-macdonnell-wp/qfq9-lake-macdonnell-a-mountain-of-gypsum.mp3 0:06 3 full Lake MacDonnell: The Mine and the Railway to Kevin https://qualla.com/lake-macdonnell/ Photo credit Alexander Macduff, CC0. Gypsum has been worked here since 1919, and the operation is no small affair: around 3.5 million tonnes are extracted each year, making this the largest gypsum mine in Australia. Salt, once the main product, is now mined only as a secondary one. The raw gypsum is stockpiled at ne...

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Image: Alexander Macduff | CC0

]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/q/f/q/9/lake-macdonnell-wp/qfq9-lake-macdonnell-the-mine-and-the-railway-to-kevin.mp3 0:06 4 full Lake MacDonnell: The Causeway and the Crowd It Draws https://qualla.com/lake-macdonnell/ Photo credit Alexander Macduff, CC0. The lake's fame rests on a single, photogenic accident of geography: the causeway. A narrow road runs straight across the water, and where it does, the pink lake on one side meets the green lake on the other in a hard, startling line - rose and emerald divided by a strip of grave...

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Image: Alexander Macduff | CC0

]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/q/f/q/9/lake-macdonnell-wp/qfq9-lake-macdonnell-the-causeway-and-the-crowd-it-draws.mp3 0:06 5 full