Lake Tyrrell, Victoria: The pink lake that put a dying town on the map

Tour operator Julie Pringle at Lake Tyrrell.Credit: Jason South

Julie Pringle parks her vehicle above the dry banks of Lake Tyrrell in Victoria's northwest. Brooding rain clouds stretch across the broad Mallee skies, threatening to disrupt our pre-dawn tour from the farming town of Sea Lake. But with the rain forecast to hold off for a few more hours, and with no hint of a breeze, Julie declares the conditions ideal for creating mirror-like reflections off the surface of the state's largest and oldest salt lake.

"I love it when we get rain clouds here," she says. "The skies open up and talk to you. It's just beautiful."

She leads us out onto the shallow saltpan's crusty surface. Being mid-November, barely any water remains inside the lake. The winter rains that fill it from June to August each year have mostly evaporated, with the winds shifting what's left from one bay to another. At this time of year though, most of the water on the lake's surface has seeped up from below, disguising muddy pools lingering just beneath the surface crust.

When conditions are right, you can capture mirror-like reflections off the surface of Victoria's largest and oldest salt lake.Credit: Anne Morely/Visit Victoria

As we tiptoe out onto the lake in distinctly unfashionable gumboots, the crunch of dried salt beneath our feet sounds like we're trudging through a bowl of Corn Flakes. Around the lake's edges, the briny crust betrays a rosy tinge that's triggered by mixing spring rains with high salinity levels and algae. Between the months of September and December, that precise chemical process turns this into one of Victoria's rare pink lakes (others are located near Dimboola and in the Murray Sunset National Park, west of Ouyen).

In recent years, the blushing stain and the mirror-like reflections off the surface of the shallow lake have helped turn Sea Lake into one of the state's unlikeliest tourist towns. Prior to 2014, however, young townsfolk couldn't escape it fast enough. Its ageing pub, the Royal Hotel, was on its last legs, reflecting its patronage. And the major supermarket chains had abandoned it. Then a photo of sunset reflections on Lake Tyrrell went viral on Chinese social media, sparking a flood of foreign, then domestic, tourists beating a path north out of Melbourne, injecting some sorely needed funds into the region.

The trickle-on effect of these never-before-seen visitors traipsing into town with tripods over their shoulder, hoping to capture arresting images of the Milky Way arcing over the lake, or of the rich dawn colours mirrored in the water's surface, has been nothing short of astounding. Locals banded together to buy the pub, spending millions to restore it as the hub of social activity in town and turn it into a must-visit attraction. Real estate prices skyrocketed as properties were bought up and rented out through short-term accommodation websites. And as elderly residents inevitably move to bigger towns with better health facilities, young folk who grew up in the Mallee began returning, giving Sea Lake a much-needed energy boost.

Lake Tyrrell has helped turn Sea Lake into one of the state's unlikeliest tourist towns.Credit: Anne Morely/Visit Victoria

In December 2020, a multi-million-dollar tourist installation opened beside the lake in an effort to enhance the experience, and the road there from town was upgraded to minimise the potential for motoring accidents. Before that, a photo gallery and café opened up inside the old bank building in order to showcase the lake's beauty, which had been taken for granted in the past. Then late last year, the disused Buloke Shire Office building on the Calder Highway was repurposed as a brand-new Visitor Centre that's manned entirely by volunteers. One of those volunteers is Julie Pringle.

It's fair to say that Pringle has led the charge in promoting tourism in and around the Sea Lake area. She was the one who uploaded the photo that went viral on Chinese social media. And it was her who fielded enquiries from an inbound travel agent in Sydney, who promptly organised tour itineraries to the Mallee to see the lake, ensuring a stampede of Greyhound buses with unfamiliar foreign lettering plastered down the side to pull up in town. It was also Pringle who saw the business potential early in the piece when she opened an accommodation booking service and offered tours to the lake three times a day, seven days a week. Without her knowledge of the seasons and the lake's shifting moods, astro and landscape photographers wouldn't be able to get the images they want nearly as easily.

Of course, COVID halted the buses from coming two years ago, though that's expected to resume once lockdown restrictions are lifted in China. On the flipside, domestic tourists have now cottoned on, with plenty including visits to Sea Lake and Lake Tyrrell while they motor through Victoria's northwest following the Silo Art Trail that connects small-town grain silos sprinkled throughout the Wimmera and Mallee regions. In October 2019, a colourful artwork portraying a young girl swinging from a Mallee eucalypt that overlooks the lake was completed on Sea Lake's towering silos, alongside the railway line. Street murals also feature throughout the town.

Around the lake's edges, the briny crust betrays a rosy tinge that's triggered by mixing spring rains with high salinity levels and algae. Credit: Anne Morely/Visit Victoria

But it's the lake that really draws them in, even though it has taken 120,000 years for people to realise just how special is.

"It's probably the most magnificent thing in regional Victoria," says Pringle. "I really believe that. It is absolutely outstanding."

Mark Daffey visited Lake Tyrrell courtesy of Sea Lake Tyrrell Tours (sealaketyrrelltours.com.au).