Lake McKenzie, Fraser Island, Queensland 25 Jan 2011

Lake McKenzie is a sublime place to swim. And on the day we were there, we were the only group (14 people!). The lake is a "perched lake", meaning it is located above the water table. It is fed ONLY by rain water, and the only way water can exit is through evaporation. A layer of bonded mud, sand and vegetation (peat) called "humate" acts like a huge swimming pool liner, keeping the water inside.

Because the water is pure, swimmers are asked not to wear sunscreen or oils or use soap and shampoos when swimming. Car camping has been banned by the lake, which has cut down on the amount of litter and water contamination which previously occurred there.

The water temp was approximately 23 degrees - perfect!

Fraser Island has about 40 perched lakes.

Here are my photos of swimming in the lake previously - on 24 Jan 2001

Above: This looks to be an accumulation of oils

Lake Mckenzie, Fraser Island

Photos: 24 Jan, 2001
Lake Mackenzie is on Fraser Island, Queensland, the largest sand island in the world. It has been world heritage listed since 1992.

Mackenzie is a "perched" lake sitting on top of compact sand and vegetable matter 100 metres above sea level. Ithas an area of 150 hectares and is just over five metres in depth. The beach sand of Lake McKenzie is nearly pure silica and it is possible to wash hair, teeth, jewellery, and exfoliate your skin. The lakes have very few nutrients and pH varies, though sunscreen and soaps are a problem as a form of pollution.

The beaches along Fraser Island are not recommended for swimming, having plentiful sea snakes and tiger sharks in their waters.

Blue Lake, Mount Kosciuszko

January 1988

Incredibly cold water, on an amazingly hot day, with huge, dopey flies lolloping around your face. 1900metres above sea level, and one of only four cirque lakes in mainland Australia. Formed by glacial gouging of the granite rock. The lake is one of the purest freshwater lakes in the country. In winter it is a popular site for ice climbing.

I'm pretty sure that because of its environmental sensitivity, swimming is not allowed. A number of threatened plant and invertebrate species that are restricted to alpine areas are found here.

Blue Pool, Angourie

http://www.australiantraveller.com/site_files/s1001/images/088.jpg

I visited here in January 1979 on my first real parent-free “road trip” as an adult. There’d been several with my parents when I was a kid, mainly between Melbourne from whence we hailed, and Sydney where we’d moved when I was ten. But we’d never struck out north. Now. I’d just finished uni, and was travelling north with a couple of girlfriends, in the interregnum between leaving full time study for the first time in 16 years and starting work as a teacher. It had been school then uni, and now, as a bonded teacher trainee, I was guaranteed a job “somewhere in NSW”.

It’s hard to believe today, but you signed a bond at age 17 agreeing to be appointed anywhere in the state, went to uni, and then, being guaranteed a job, got a slip in the mail sometime in the week before school began in late January, and then you were off!

That was all several weeks away as we headed north. One of our number was a long-standing surfie chick and knew all the best “spots” up the north coast. Our ultimate destination was her married sister’s place in Caloundra, Qld. On the way we camped at Angourie, a really sleepy, tiny hamlet known then mainly by hard-core surfers.
Angourie’s Blue Pool was once a rock quarry that transformed into a pool when an underground freshwater spring was disturbed. It is a dazzling blue. I did not, unlike many, jump off the cliffs – never been a daredevil that way! I can remember that it was pretty chilly.

A relatively short walk along a track is the “Green Pool”, another former quarry. We swam here too, and I believe it was silkier and warmer.

Angourie is just outside YURAYGIR National Park and is 684km north of Sydney, 10km south of Yamba, 133km south of Byron Bay.

My photo of The Blue Pool, January 1979:

The Green Pool:

Copi Hollow, Lake Menindee NSW

Copi Hollow is an artifically constructed lake developed for speedboats, sailing, swimming and water-skiing about 13 km north of Menindee on the Broken Hill Rd.

We were on a summer road trip from Sydney to Adelaide in January 1982. We went via Broken Hill where we spent a few days with close friends who had moved there a year or so earlier. Broken Hill is hot in summer. Water is cool. And Copi Hollow was just what we needed.

The Menindee Lakes have been suffering from lack of water from its feeder source, the darling River, in the rescent drought, and Copi Hollow has been afflicted by a toxic blue-gree algae. Unfortunatley, much of the water from the Darling "disappears" into massive cotton farm way, way upstream. 

"The Res", Macedon, Victoria

Roger Deakin's story-telling in Waterlog (see post below) inspired me to think of some of the more unusual places I've swum in Australia. Many of my father's maternal family, the Coggers, lived around the Mount Macedon area 60km outside Melbourne, and his sister Elizabeth returned there in retirement. We went to visit her in January 1982 - a rather hot summer. My cousin was also around. He took us to a number of local 'hotspots'.

My aunt lived a short walk from "The Res", which I believe was off Nursery Road. I suspect it may not have been legal to swim in this, one of the water reservoirs of the Macedon area. It forms part of drinking water catchment. Nevertheless, it was a great place to slip into, thanks to a bit of local knowledge about its existence.

I’m not sure of the name of this particular waterhole – we just called it “The Res”. According to maps I've looked at, it was probably a small dam on Middle Creek.

We spent a few afternoons down at The Res, and I recall swimming out to a dock or platform a hundred or two metres from the bank.

On February 16, 1983, bushfires, known as the Ash Wednesday bushfires devastated Macedon, and many other parts of Victoria and South Australia. When we revisited in September 1984 you could clearly see "The Res" where trees had previously hidden it. That strange smell of dampened ash was STILL in the air that much later.


Below: photo by Peter Smith from The Melbourne Age - the Mount Macedon bushfire from melbourne, 60km away.

[My aunt's house was spared, one of few in her street - the capricious fire just glanced off it, and moved on]