Little Blue Lake: The Swimable Sinkhole
The rural and less explored Limestone Coast in South Australia is absolutely packed with natural treasures and surprises in all directions, yet without the thousands of tourists like you’d find on the Great Ocean Road, which is about 2-3 hours east from here.
If you happen to be in the area when it’s hot and you’re looking for a unique place to cool off with a bit of adventure, the Little Blue Lake just near Mount Gambier might just be the perfect place.
The Little Blue Lake is a sinkhole, just like hundreds of others in the south-east of South Australia. Unlike almost every other sinkhole in the area, you can swim in the Little Blue and it’s not too hard to find.
There are stairs from the top of the sinkhole right down to the bottom with a pontoon, making entering the water for a swim pretty easy, although most locals jump straight in from the cliff edge which range from about 2 to 6 metres – this is the main reason that people head here instead of the beach or countless other places to swim in the region.
The Little Blue Lake is definitely normally visited by people a little bit more adventurous that are look for a small cliff jump, although the local council have banned jumping into the sinkhole from edge, it doesn’t seem to stop anyone.
Getting to the Little Blue Lake, South Australia
The Little Blue Lake is about a 15 minute drive south of Mount Gambier, close to Mount Shank volcano. It’s about half-way between the Mount and the beach.
It’d be a good idea to already be in the bottom south-east corner of South Australia or near-by, otherwise there are loads of similar places to have a swim or a small cliff jump with a much shorter drive, such as the Pillars in Mount Martha, if you’re near Melbourne.
Adelaide is about 5 hours west and Melbourne is about 5 hours east of the Little Blue.
Cliff Jumping at the Little Blue
Straight from our travel blog, take a look at when we were here and jumped into the Little Blue Lake from the edge.
If you’re here while there are some locals out and about, it’ll be a pretty safe bet to see some people getting crazy doing back flips and jumping into the sinkhole from some much more gnarly places than you’ll see in these videos of us.
Have you been to the Little Blue Lake near Mount Gambier, South Australia?
If you’ve been to the Little Blue or even somewhere similar in another part of the world, comment on this blog post and if you can, share a link so that we can take a look!