Panorama taken from a viewpoint overlooking the Blue Lake in Mount Gambier. This picture was taken in the summer of 2007, when the water was a deep blue. This picture was taken from the lookout near to the Blue Lake Reception Centre. You can see the pumping station on the right hand shore. Google must have taken their picture in the summer month as the lake is blue on the satellite image used by Google maps.

Blue Lake - Mount Gambier visitor guide showing a virtual tour of 'Blue Lake' linked to an interactive map with local and travel information. 360° panoramas from South Australia.

Blue Lake is the top tourist attraction in Mount Gambier. It is famous for turning from grey in the winter to a deep cobalt blue during the summer months. On the crater rim is the Blue Lake Reception Centre and from here visitors can book onto the Aquifer Tours down to the old pumping station and near the lake surface to see the new pumps. The lake fills one of the 4 maars (shallow craters) of the volcano. The crater that holds the Blue Lake is 1200m long by 824m wide. It is encircled by John Watson Drive and a 3.6km walking track. The lake within it measures 1087m by 657m. It is about 70m deep, but the level of the lake rises and falls over time. The bottom of the lake is about 30m below the level of Mount Gambier town. The Blue Lake holds about 36,000 ML of water is heavily protected as it provides Mount Gambier with drinking water, naturally filtered through the rocks.

Technically, the Blue Lake is a warm monomictic lake, the water layers mix at different times of the year driven by temperature changes. This drives the changing colour, but the exact process is not fully understood. It is thought that during the summer months the surface of the lake warms to around 20°C, at which point calcium carbonate precipitates out of solution forming micro-crystallites of calcium carbonate which scatter blue light. Other factors are also thought to play a part.

The other maars on Mount Gambier contain Valley Lake, Leg of Mutton Lake, and Browne's Lake. Of these only Valley Lake contains water.

Road: From the A1 / B1 at Mount Gambier take the B66 south. The Blue Lake Reception Centre is on John Watson Drive which comes left off the B66. Mount Gambier is 450km east of Adelaide on the A1 / B1. It is 195km west of Warrnambool and 450km west of Melbourne.