The Pinnacles are thousands of ancient limestone pillars rising from the desert within Nambung National Park just 245 kilometres north of Perth in Western Australia.
Australia: Western Australia – Hutt Lagoon
Pretty in Pink: A Visit to Hutt Lagoon, Western Australia
We drove north out of Geraldton on a road so flat and straight that I began to seriously question whether the earth was, in fact, round. After about an hour, somewhere around the 52-kilometre mark, we turned off onto Port Gregory Road and followed it for another 42 kilometres through a landscape that could generously be described as minimal. Scrub, red dirt, the occasional startled emu. It is the kind of country that makes you very grateful for air conditioning and a full tank of fuel. And then, without the slightest fanfare — no roadside sign, no gift shop, no man in a high-visibility vest waving you into a car park — the lake simply appeared. And it was pink. Genuinely, unmistakably, cartoonishly pink. Not pale rose or dusty blush or any of those colours you find in a Farrow and Ball catalogue, but a proper, confident, stand-your-ground pink, sitting there between the red dirt and the Indian Ocean as though it had been doing this for years, which, of course, it had. The lagoon stretches for about 14 kilometres along a northwest-southeast axis, covers roughly 70 square kilometres in total, and sits mostly a few metres below sea level in a low-lying depression between coastal dunes and the sea. It is separated from the Indian Ocean by nothing more than a beach barrier and a ridge of dunes, which feels like an arrangement that the ocean should probably have more say in. George Grey Drive runs along the eastern edge, but there is nowhere safe to pull over on that side, so we found a spot on Port Gregory Road to the west, pulled up in the red dust, got out, and stood there in the heat doing what everyone does when confronted with something genuinely improbable. We just stared.
The colour, it turns out, is not a trick of the light or the product of someone having an extremely productive afternoon with a hose and a bottle of food dye. It comes entirely from a microscopic alga called Dunaliella salina, which thrives in conditions of almost comically high salinity — anywhere from three to six times saltier than the ocean — and which, when exposed to strong sunlight, pumps out beta-carotene in quantities that would make a carrot feel self-conscious. Beta-carotene is the same orange-red pigment responsible for the colour of carrots, sweet potatoes, and several things you find in health food shops next to the spirulina. In Hutt Lagoon it produces a pink that varies through the day and the seasons, ranging from pale candy-floss in overcast conditions to something close to lurid magenta on a clear afternoon, with mid-morning between ten and two being the optimum window if you want the full effect. The lake also produces Artemia parthenogenetica — brine shrimp, or sea monkeys, if you grew up with those little adverts in the back of comics — which are harvested and used as food in commercial fish farming. More significantly, the lagoon contains what is currently the world’s largest microalgae production plant, a 250-hectare grid of artificial ponds operated by BASF, the German chemicals company, which sustainably harvests the beta-carotene for use in food colouring, health supplements, vitamin A production, and baby formula. The whole operation is only properly visible from the air, where the geometric ponds form an extraordinary pattern across the pink water. We did not fly over it. We stood at the edge of a dirt road in the heat, which is, in many ways, the correct way to experience Australia.
🏛️ The History — Explorers, Convicts, and a Politician Nobody Remembers
The lagoon got its name on the 4th of April 1839, when the British explorer George Grey pitched camp on its eastern edge during what history tactfully records as his second disastrous expedition along the Western Australian coast. Grey was twenty-seven years old, energetic, and apparently not especially good at reading the landscape. He looked at the large expanse of water in front of him — full of winter rain and swollen to a fair impression of an estuary — and concluded he had discovered a major river system. He named it after William Hutt, a British Liberal MP who had been heavily involved in the colonisation of Western Australia, New Zealand, and South Australia, and who happened to be the brother of John Hutt, the second Governor of Western Australia. It was, in short, the colonial equivalent of naming something after your boss’s brother. The following January, Governor Hutt dispatched the colonial schooner Champion under Captain Dring to investigate what Grey had described as a large river and estuary. The captain reported that the mouth of the Hutt River was dry, that the great estuary was nowhere to be found, and that what Grey had seen was, in the words of George Fletcher Moore who accompanied the voyage, a seasonal lagoon. Grey had, in other words, been fooled by the winter rains and a geographical feature that spent much of the year as a dry salt flat. In summer, roughly 95 percent of the lagoon surface does precisely that. The explorer was not, apparently, put off by this sort of thing. He went on to become Governor of South Australia, Governor of New Zealand, Prime Minister of New Zealand, and later Governor of Cape Colony in South Africa, which suggests that mistaking a salt lake for a river does not necessarily derail a career in the Victorian era.
The broader history of this stretch of coast is, by any measure, a strange one. Not far from the lagoon, tucked into a small valley near the road into Port Gregory, sit the limestone ruins of the Lynton Convict Hiring Depot, which opened on the 22nd of May 1853 and which represents one of the more eccentric chapters in the colonisation of Western Australia. It was the first convict depot north of Fremantle, established on the recommendation of Lord Grey, Secretary of State for the Colonies, to supply labour to the Geraldine Lead Mine, some 64 kilometres to the north on the Murchison River — the first mining operation in Western Australia. The first sixty ticket-of-leave convicts and their pensioner guards, who were retired British soldiers, arrived aboard the 173-ton brigantine Leander, which had originally brought them from England to Fremantle on the Pyrenees. They lived in tents while the stone buildings went up slowly around them, delayed by a lack of suitable timber and skilled labour. By 1856, the depot included a lockup with cells and a walled exercise yard, a hospital, a bakery, a store, a lime kiln, and an administration block, all built from the local limestone. The water from the depot’s well, sunk to 18 metres, turned out to be brackish. A second well had to be dug half a kilometre up the bank of the Hutt River. The convicts grew no vegetables to speak of. Scurvy followed. Governor Kennedy ordered the depot closed on the 3rd of January 1857. The whole thing had lasted less than four years. During the Second World War, stones were reportedly taken from the ruins to build roads, which tells you something about the relative priorities of mid-twentieth-century infrastructure projects. What remains has since been partially restored, re-roofed in places, and equipped with interpretive signage. We stopped, read the signs, looked at the cells, and thought, as one does in places like this, about what it must have taken — or more accurately, what it must have cost — to find yourself here in 1853, a long way from wherever home had been.
Planning your visit to Hutt Lagoon
🌸 Hutt Lagoon (Pink Lake) — Visitor Planning Guide
📍 Location
Hutt Lagoon, also known by its Aboriginal name Yallabatharra, sits on Western Australia’s Coral Coast near the small fishing village of Port Gregory, in the Shire of Northampton. The lagoon stretches approximately 70 square kilometres, making it one of the largest salt lakes in the region, and lies only a few metres below sea level, separated from the Indian Ocean by a thin sandbar and dune system.
The lagoon’s extraordinary bubblegum-pink colour — which can shift to lilac, purple, or even deep red — is caused by a microalgae called Dunaliella salina. This organism thrives in the lake’s hypersaline water, which can be four to five times saltier than the ocean, and produces beta-carotene as a natural response to intense sunlight. It is this pigment that creates the lake’s famous hue. Notably, part of the lagoon is home to the world’s largest microalgae production plant, operated by BASF, which harvests beta-carotene commercially for use in food colouring, cosmetics, and health supplements.
Port Gregory itself is a picturesque and extremely quiet fishing village nestled between the lagoon and the beach, near the mouth of the Hutt River. It offers basic amenities including a general store, public toilets, and a caravan park, but little else — so come prepared.
🚗 Getting There
There is no public transport to Hutt Lagoon. A car is essential.
The most common approach is the drive north from Perth along the Indian Ocean Drive coastal highway, which takes approximately five and a half to six hours, covering around 515–528 kilometres. This scenic coastal route edges the ocean for much of the journey and passes through the town of Jurien Bay, which makes a natural halfway stop for fuel and refreshments.
From Geraldton, the nearest city, the drive is around one hour north. Geraldton is itself accessible by road (roughly four hours from Perth) or by a one-hour domestic flight from Perth Airport, after which hiring a car allows you to reach the lagoon with ease.
From Kalbarri to the north, the drive south to Hutt Lagoon takes approximately 35 to 45 minutes.
All roads leading to the lagoon are sealed, meaning a standard two-wheel-drive vehicle is perfectly adequate. No off-road capability is required.
Alternatively, various guided tours depart from Perth and include the lagoon as part of multi-day itineraries that also take in the Pinnacles, Kalbarri National Park, and other Coral Coast highlights. Scenic flights over the lagoon operate out of both Geraldton and Kalbarri, offering a spectacular aerial perspective of the pink and lilac patchwork of ponds against the blue of the Indian Ocean.
Best Time to Visit the Northern Coasts of Western Australia
The northern coasts of Western Australia span an extraordinary stretch of coastline running from Kalbarri and Shark Bay in the south through the Coral Coast, Ningaloo Reef, and Exmouth, all the way north to the Pilbara and the Kimberley. This is a region of enormous geographical variety — from the Mediterranean-tinged climate of Kalbarri’s red-gorge coast to the full tropical drama of Broome and the Kimberley — and no single set of rules applies uniformly across the whole stretch. What they share, however, is a broad seasonal logic: the further north you travel, the more sharply the Wet and Dry seasons dominate; the further south, the more the climate modulates into something warmer and drier, but more manageable year-round. Understanding how each season plays across these different areas is the key to planning a well-timed journey.
🌧️ Wet Season — Summer (November to April)
Summer brings the full force of the tropics to the upper northern coasts. Across Broome, the Kimberley, and the Pilbara, temperatures regularly exceed 35°C and can climb well into the low 40s, accompanied by high humidity, monsoonal downpours, and the genuine threat of cyclones from December through to March. Many unsealed roads, including those accessing remote gorges and coastal areas, become impassable. Some resorts and tour operators in the remote Kimberley close entirely.
Further south, Kalbarri and Shark Bay feel the summer heat differently. Kalbarri sits in a warm Mediterranean climate and experiences its hottest, driest months from November through February, with temperatures regularly exceeding 35°C and occasionally touching 40°C, particularly inland and within the gorges of Kalbarri National Park. Hiking the Loop, Z-Bend Gorge, or visiting the Kalbarri Skywalk in full summer is inadvisable — gorge temperatures can be brutal and dangerous. The beach and snorkelling at Blue Holes Marine Sanctuary remain accessible, and the town maintains a lively summer holiday atmosphere during school breaks. Shark Bay is similarly hot and dry in summer, with Monkey Mia’s famous wild dolphin encounters continuing year-round regardless of season. The heat can make daytime exploration of the peninsula’s more exposed areas uncomfortable, and the Francois Peron National Park’s unsealed tracks require a high-clearance 4WD at all times.
Across the full northern coastal stretch, stinger (jellyfish) season is active from October through May, significantly restricting safe ocean swimming in many locations. Turtle nesting at Ningaloo peaks between November and February, and whale shark activity at Ningaloo can begin as early as mid-March.
What to pack: Lightweight, moisture-wicking clothing, a waterproof rain jacket or poncho, SPF 50+ sunscreen and SPF lip balm, DEET insect repellent, a wide-brimmed hat, waterproof sandals or quick-dry footwear, a dry bag for electronics, rehydration sachets, a stinger suit if swimming, and a cyclone-tracking app for travel north of Exmouth.
🍂 Dry Season — Autumn (March to May)
April and May are among the most rewarding months to visit the northern coasts, striking the ideal balance between warmth, accessibility, and wildlife spectacle. The rains ease from March onwards, humidity drops markedly, and the landscape remains lush from the wet season — particularly in the Kimberley, where waterfalls are still flowing strongly and the red-rock country is at its most vivid.
Kalbarri is at its absolute best in autumn. Locals and experienced visitors consistently cite April as the sweet spot: temperatures of 26–30°C with little wind, calm waters on the Murchison River ideal for kayaking and paddleboarding, and the gorge trails of Kalbarri National Park comfortably walkable again. Wildflowers begin their season in the surrounding countryside from around late June, but even in April the Kalbarri area offers exceptional birdlife and a noticeably relaxed, uncrowded atmosphere. Accommodation is easier to book than in peak winter, and prices are more competitive.
Shark Bay in autumn is similarly excellent. April and May bring warm, manageable days with temperatures between 24°C and 30°C, perfect for kayaking the turquoise shallows of Denham, visiting the ancient stromatolites at Hamelin Pool, and watching the bottlenose dolphins wade ashore at Monkey Mia. The seagrass beds that sustain Shark Bay’s enormous dugong population — thought to number around 10,000 individuals, the largest concentration in the world — are best explored by boat or kayak in the calm autumn conditions. Humpback whale migration passes through Shark Bay from around May as whales begin tracking northward.
Further up the coast, whale shark season at Ningaloo hits full stride from mid-March through to late July, with guided snorkel tours from Exmouth and Coral Bay filling rapidly. Booking well in advance is essential.
What to pack: Light cotton or linen clothing for warm days, a warmer layer for cool evenings, sunscreen, a hat, polarised sunglasses, reef-safe sunscreen for Ningaloo snorkelling, a rash vest or stinger suit, sturdy hiking shoes for gorge walks, a portable water supply for remote areas, and a camera with underwater housing.
❄️ Dry Season — Winter (June to August)
Winter is the undisputed peak season across the full length of the northern coast, and with good reason. From Kalbarri in the south to Broome in the north, conditions during these months are warm, reliably sunny, and almost entirely rain-free — the very definition of ideal travelling weather.
Kalbarri in winter settles into days of around 20–24°C with cool evenings and nights that can dip towards 10°C — considerably cooler than the tropical north, but perfectly comfortable for gorge walking, coastal exploration, and camping. The wildflower season, which runs from late June through October, adds extraordinary colour to the surrounding landscape. Humpback whales migrate along the coast from June through November, and spotters on Kalbarri’s clifftops regularly sight them from June onwards. The Kalbarri Skywalk — a cantilevered viewing platform extending 100 metres over the gorge — is best experienced in the comfortable winter temperatures.
Shark Bay in winter can be notably cooler than the tropical north, with daytime temperatures of around 20–25°C and nights that occasionally fall below 15°C — warmer clothing is worth packing. The Monkey Mia dolphin encounters continue daily. The World Heritage-listed area’s birdlife reaches its peak diversity in these months, with over a third of Australia’s total bird species represented in the region. Dugong boat tours from Monkey Mia and Denham operate reliably. The main concern in winter is the wind: Shark Bay can experience strong southerly winds in June and July, which makes some water activities uncomfortable and choppy.
Further north, the entire Kimberley coast, Ningaloo Reef, Exmouth, and the Pilbara are all open, accessible, and operating at full capacity. Whale sharks continue at Ningaloo into late July. Karijini National Park — one of Australia’s most dramatic gorge systems — offers cool swimming holes and comfortable hiking. Broome’s famous Cable Beach and the Kimberley’s gorge country draw large crowds in July, which is Western Australia’s main school holiday month.
What to pack: Light daytime clothing (shorts, T-shirts, light shirts), a fleece or lightweight down jacket for cool evenings and Shark Bay nights, long trousers for cooler nights and gorge walks, sturdy closed-toe walking shoes, sandals, sunscreen, polarised sunglasses, swimwear, a dry bag, binoculars for whale watching, a headtorch for gorge exploration, and any prescription medication (pharmacies are limited in remote areas).
🌸 Shoulder Season — Spring (September to November)
Spring is a tale of two halves across the northern coast. September and early October offer some of the most enjoyable travelling conditions of the year: warm but not brutal temperatures, open roads, continued wildflower displays, active wildlife, and noticeably thinning crowds following the July–August peak.
In Kalbarri, spring is the second-best period for a visit. Wildflowers are at their most spectacular throughout September and into October, with the surrounding Kalbarri National Park and the roadsides of the Midwest blanketed in everlarts, banksias, and dozens of endemic species. Whale watching from the cliffs continues until November. Temperatures climb through October, and by late October the heat begins to reassert itself; the flies also return in force. The gorge trails become increasingly uncomfortable as the month progresses, and most experienced hikers finish major walks by morning to avoid the worst of the afternoon heat.
Shark Bay in spring is lively and scenic. September through October sees warm, pleasant conditions for water activities, and the area’s turtles — green turtles and loggerhead turtles both nest in the region — begin their season from around November. Monkey Mia’s dolphins are reliably active, and dugong boat tours continue throughout. October can still be excellent, but November marks the beginning of the heat build-up that makes summer here less comfortable.
Further north, the tropical build-up arrives earlier and more aggressively. By November, humidity is rising sharply across Broome and the Kimberley, and the pre-wet-season atmosphere — known locally as “the Build-up” — can be wearing. Cyclone risk increases from November. September is the last truly ideal month for the northern Kimberley, while October is still manageable in the Pilbara and Coral Coast areas with the right preparation and heat tolerance.
What to pack: Light breathable clothing, heavy-duty SPF 50+ sunscreen, a hat, polarised sunglasses, light rain protection from October onwards, insect repellent (flies are persistent in spring), swimwear, reef-safe sunscreen, a cooling towel, electrolyte supplements, a stinger suit from November, and flexible travel insurance covering weather disruption.
🌟 Overall Best Time to Visit
For travellers covering the full sweep of the northern coast — from Kalbarri and Shark Bay through the Coral Coast and Ningaloo to the Kimberley — the window from late April through to August represents the strongest overall recommendation, with June and July standing out as the definitive sweet spot. During these months, every destination along this extraordinary coastline is open and performing at its peak: Kalbarri’s gorges are walkable and wildflower-fringed, Shark Bay’s waters are calm and its wildlife abundant, Ningaloo’s whale sharks and humpbacks are both in residence, and the remote northern reaches of the Kimberley and Karijini are fully accessible under brilliant, rain-free skies. Those who can avoid the July school holiday peak — travelling in May, June, or the first half of August — will encounter the same remarkable conditions with fewer fellow visitors, lower accommodation prices, and a little more of the vast, unhurried solitude that makes this coastline one of the finest in the world.
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