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| Glasswort, Lake Hardy. |
I’d planned on walking this small circuit of Lake Hardy late in the day as I’d heard that the salt lake was one of the pinkest of the lakes in the Pink Lakes area and it was meant to be at it's best near sunset. So it almost goes without saying that as the hours ticked by this afternoon the clouds rolled in, instead of a brilliant sunset it looked like I was more likely to be dodging storms, such is life! Leaving the ute I reset the GPS and after another glance over my shoulder at the approaching weather, I dropped down to the north western corner of the lake and set off on my circumnavigation.
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Apparently this walk is better in overcast conditions, I had that covered then!
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| I could pretty well see the whole walk from the car park. |
Now I mentioned in the first paragraph that this walk is small and setting off this afternoon I could see the total length of my walk in front of me, this wasn’t going to be a hard walk. Heading clockwise I walked the northern shoreline, the track heading towards some cleared farmland. Lake Hardy is near one of the entrances to Murray Sunset National Park, so with plenty of cleared land visible it doesn’t have that remote feeling that some of the other salt lakes around here have.
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Dropping down close to the shore I headed off in a clockwise direction.
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Lake Hardy is very close to the edge of the park.
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| Lake Hardy |
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My track mostly stayed pretty close to the lake shore as I dropped down the eastern shoreline, the overcast light not diminishing my enthusiasm with the camera. The Saltbush and Glasswort’s looking particularly photographic out here (I thought). Dropping down towards the southern end of the lake the track heads around a bit of a low, swampy area, the well marked track making for very easy walking.
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This is a very easy walk.
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Lake Hardy
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| Lake Hardy |
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Rounding the southern end of Lake Hardy I crossed over from the salt flats onto red sand and started heading back towards the ute. Not only was I now walking towards the ute but I was also heading towards the weather and things looked a little worrying on that front. It wasn’t very long before the clouds started to deliver and I was getting splattered with big fat rain drops, I thought that it was kind of ironic that I was walking in the desert during one of the driest starts to a year that we’ve ever had, and yet I was still getting wet.
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Saltbush at sunset, Lake Hardy.
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Lake Hardy
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Lake Hardy
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| The southern end of the lake is a bit swampy. |
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Heading back up the western shoreline the track once again stays fairly close to the salt and I dropped down to the salt lake a couple of times to check things out. There had been a little rain up here over the last week and the edges of the lake were a bit damp so I didn’t venture onto the salt on this walk, I was happy enough to take things in from dry land. With my track contouring the side of a red dune it was only ten minutes or so before I arrived back at the spot where I’d dropped down to the lake half an hour ago, climbing back up to the ute my easy stroll was now over.
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Heading back up to the ute along the western shoreline I was back in red sand country.
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Lake Hardy
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Sunset at Lake Hardy.
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Lake Hardy.
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| The overhead conditions were varying greatly depending on the direction that I pointed the camera. |
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The Dirt.
I walked 2.3 kilometres and climbed 32 metres on this very easy stroll. Allegedly the best views of these pink lakes are around sunset and sunrise on overcast days, however while it was definitely overcast this afternoon I didn’t really think the colour of the salt was enhanced that much. Compare these sunset photos to some photos I took near sunrise that morning on the Kline Nature Walk in the sun and, for me anyway, the morning photos are better. This is a very easy walk though, one that you could easily do if you wanted to stretch your legs on a road trip to other distant destinations. The only walking notes published for this that I know of are by John & Lyn Daly in their Take a Walk in Victoria Book. Parks Vic also have enough free stuff online to do this walk safely.
Relevant Posts.
Kline Nature Walk, Murray~Sunset National Park, 2019.
Lake Mournpall Loop, Hattah~Kulkyne National Park, 2018.
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| Lake Hardy |
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| There was no shortage of animal tracks along the soft edge of the lake. |
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| Lake Hardy |
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| It was a very short climb from the lake to the ute, thankfully I largely avoided the rain... |
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| ....although I copped a bit on the way home. |
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