Gregory, Pink lake

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Gregory originally Port Gregory and prior to that Boat harbour is a small town and fishing port located on the coast of the Mid west region of Western Australia  

Port Gregory was first established in 1849 and named after Augustus and Frank Gregory. In 1853 sixty convicts and guards arrived from England ,  at that time a township was gazetted and named Lynton. The building above and below are the remnants of the town ship of Lynton. the convicts worked mainly for the government and creating roads and the Geraldine Lead mine, but later became involved in pastoral activities as well.

At later times the port was used mainly for whaling, and to ship lead ore and pig lead from the  mines.

Salt from the nearby Hutt lagoon was also mined and shipped up until the depression. The coast of Gregory is littered with sunken ships , mainly due to the unsuitability of the port for large vessels, but also  due to many ships being overloaded with Lead Ore and once they left the safety of the reef and entered the open ocean, they would capsize or sink in the strong seas.

Today Gregory continues to be a popular fishing town. However mining continues to be a dominant industry in the area. 

If you look at the image above you can see that the sand dunes have a pink hue to them , this is due to alluvial garnet sand deposits. The garnet sand is an extremely strong sand made of garnet crystals, and due to its hardness it is the ideal product for sandblasting , as it is able to be recycled and reused multiple times. It is safer to use then Silica sand as it creates less dust.

However there is another reason people travel to Gregory and it’s the reason why it was one of our destinations.

Gregory’s Hutt Lagoon is a Pink Lake which has been the location of multiple commercials and some videos clips over the past few years.

As i explained previously , the pink lakes are caused by an algae that produces beta -carotene and the pinkness of the lake is all dependant on a number of factors.

However the great thing about Gregory’s lake is that it is now controlled by Man and will constantly be in a state of pinkness.  A company now farms the lake for the algae , adding salt water as required to maintain a constant crop of algae. The Beta-Carotene is sold world wide and is used in a variety of cosmetics , food dyes and herbal supplements.

The colour still varies from time to time , depending on wind, sunlight , evaporation ect ect…


The above amazing photo was taken by our trusty drone, whilst i took a similar image at the same time with my camera,  the drone due to its higher angle just picked the colour up  so much better.

If you do head this way i can highly recommend the pink lake buggy tour operated by the owner  of the local caravan park, his knowledge of the towns history, and industries was amazing and also it was just great fun driving around the dunes in a buggy.

Until the next Blog 

Travel safe 

The Touring Knights



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