Epic Round The World Trip Adventures! Stunning Photos & Articles - A fascinating gap year travel journal covering every stop of their journey.

The Pink Lake - West Australia
Round The World Trip Journal

(25th February) The Pink Lake
Well we discovered what makes the Pink Lake pink! It is an algae that produces carotenoids. For example, beta carotene is a carotenoid that makes carrots orange. This algae contains a mix of carotenoids of different colours and the mix of them makes the water and salt turn pink! Amazing stuff eh? They extract the algae from the water and sell it to the food industry as a food colourant. Coincidentally, they also extract garnet from the ancient beach sand in the same location and the garnet is also pink in colour. This is the only alluvial deposit in the world but although the grains are of gem quality they are too small to cut so they are used as abrasives because they are really tough little guys. OK that’s the geology lesson over with – back to the tourist stuff!