Lake McKenzie

Lake McKenzie, known to the Butchulla people as Boorangoora, sits on a sand island and yet holds no seawater, no groundwater and no river water at all. It is a perched lake: over thousands of years, sand bound together by decaying leaves and organic matter formed a hard, impermeable floor high above the water table, and on that floor rain collects and stays. The lake covers about 80 hectares, reaches a depth of only around 6.6 m and lies some 100 m above sea level, in the forested interior of K'gari, the island long called Fraser, inside Great Sandy National Park.

What makes it extraordinary is colour and clarity. The shore is almost pure white silica, soft underfoot, and the sand runs out under the water so that the shallows glow a pale aquamarine before the lake drops away into a deep, saturated blue. Because the water is filtered by sand and fed only by rain, it carries almost no nutrients; it is so pure that few plants and animals can live in it, which is exactly why it is so transparent. Seen from the bank on a bright day, the line between the two blues looks drawn with a ruler.

K'gari itself is the largest sand island in the world and the lakes are among its wonders – the island has many perched lakes, but McKenzie is the one with the whitest beach and the most vivid water. The forest around it grows, improbably, on sand alone. During the Second World War the island was used for training, and in recent years the lake has drawn film crews and royal visitors, but its appeal is simpler: walking into water that is almost invisible.

The lake is fragile. With so few nutrients, sunscreen, soap and oils pollute it, and visitors are asked not to bring them into the water. K'gari is also home to one of the purest dingo populations in eastern Australia – wongari to the Butchulla – and the island's rangers ask every visitor to be dingo-safe.

Getting there

Lake McKenzie lies in the centre of K'gari, about 6 km from Kingfisher Bay Resort on the island's western shore. Vehicle and passenger ferries cross from River Heads, about 20 minutes' drive south of Hervey Bay, to Kingfisher Bay in roughly 50 minutes; from there the lake is reached by four-wheel-drive track or on foot along the K'gari Great Walk. Hervey Bay Airport (HVB) is about 23 km from the lake as the crow flies, plus the ferry crossing. Only high-clearance 4WD vehicles can drive the island's sand tracks; many visitors come on guided tours from Hervey Bay.