The colour is the thing nobody warns you about. You crest a low rise on a sandy track west of Ouyen and there it is — a lake the colour of raspberry cordial, sitting flat and utterly still under a sky that has not yet decided whether it is pink or blue.
An hour later the pink has started to drain out of it. By mid-morning you would drive straight past and wonder what the fuss was about.
Why Now
Spring is the window out here, and it is a genuinely narrow one. Parks Victoria is blunt about it on the park's own pages: the lakes are usually more pink in winter and spring. The colour comes from a red pigment called carotene, released by algae in the water, and it develops best in the shallows as the season warms.
The Mallee is doing the rest of the work. This is heath and scrub country that flowers hard in spring, and Parks Victoria lists wildflowers among the main reasons to visit the adjoining Hattah-Kulkyne National Park. Days sit in the twenties rather than the forties. And because almost nothing in Murray-Sunset takes a booking, the campgrounds stay quiet even when the weather is perfect.
The alternative is summer, which the people who manage this country describe as searing. Go now.
Getting There
Murray-Sunset is Victoria's second largest national park, spread across the state's far north-west between Ouyen, Murrayville and the South Australian border. That distance is rather the point — it is far enough from Melbourne that most people never make the trip.
From Melbourne you run the Calder Highway north-west through Bendigo and Charlton to Ouyen. Parks Victoria puts Hattah-Kulkyne at about 450 kilometres from Melbourne, 35 kilometres north of Ouyen and 74 kilometres south of Mildura, with the main park entrance 4 kilometres east of the Calder Highway along the Hattah-Robinvale Road. From there you keep working north-west towards the Pink Lakes, out near Underbool and Linga on the Mallee Highway side.
The highway running is easy. The park roads are a different matter. Pioneer Drive is suitable for 2WD vehicles and is the sensible introduction, but most of the rest of the track network is sand, and sand wants a 4WD with the tyre pressures dropped. If you are towing, leave the van at Ouyen or Mildura and drive in unencumbered.
Five Things Worth Your Time
The Pink Lakes at first light
Four lakes — Crosbie, Becking, Kenyon and Hardy — carry the colour, and Lake Crosbie is the biggest of them. They are at their most vivid at dawn and the effect is largely gone within an hour or two of sunrise. Set an alarm and be standing on the shoreline before it.
Pioneer Drive
This is the loop that links the lakes, and unlike most of the park it is fine in a 2WD. Allow at least a couple of hours, or make a day of it by stacking a walk and a picnic on top. There is an outdoor salt museum along the way that explains what was actually harvested out here, and how.
Kline Loop and the Lake Hardy walk
Short, flat and genuinely interesting — these walks pick through saltbush and mallee and tell the salt-mining story as they go. Lake Hardy has a day visitor area with picnic tables and toilets, so it works neatly as a lunch stop between lakes.
Hattah-Kulkyne and the Hattah Lakes
The adjoining Hattah-Kulkyne National Park is a different landscape entirely: mallee country with open native pine woodland, and a system of twelve floodplain lakes that fill from creeks connected to the Murray. It is a Ramsar-listed wetland and the birdwatching is the main reason to come. Emus, kangaroos and koalas all turn up here, and the Warepil Lookout Tower gives you the whole lake system in a single look.
The Murray River frontage
The park's northern edge is river country, with camping at Lindsay Island and a string of sites around Lock 7 and Lock 9. It makes a completely different trip to the salt lakes — red gum, water and a fishing rod — and it is a good way to round out a few days out here.
Where to Stay and Camp
Lake Crosbie is the main campground and one of only two in the park you can reach in a 2WD. It has toilets, fireplaces and picnic tables, and there are no fees and no bookings — you simply turn up. It sits on the shore of the biggest of the pink lakes, which means you can roll out of the swag and be looking at the colour before you have properly woken up. Lake Becking is the other easy one, set right on the edge of its own lake.
If you have a 4WD and want to get further out, Mt Crozier Remote Campground, Mopoke Hut, Rocket Lake and the Shearers Quarters are all options, and there is a long list of river camps along the Murray frontage. In Hattah-Kulkyne, Lake Mournpall and Lake Hattah are the established campgrounds, with Firemans Bend, Jinkers Bend and Ki Bend as smaller alternatives.
If you would rather sleep in a bed, Ouyen and Mildura both work as bases, and Murrayville and Underbool are the closest small towns to the lakes for fuel and a counter meal.
Practical Tips
- Carry every drop of water you need. There is no drinking water in the park, and campers are expected to be self-sufficient.
- Fuel up before you turn off. Ouyen and Mildura are your last reliable stops. There is nothing at the lakes.
- Do not count on your phone. There is no mobile reception in Murray-Sunset, and it does not return until you are most of the way back to town.
- Fires only where they are provided. Fireplaces exist at Crosbie and Becking; fires are not permitted along Pioneer Drive. Bring your own wood or a gas stove, and put the fire out with water before you leave.
- Take your rubbish home. There are no bins anywhere in the park.
- Know the rules. No dogs, no generators, no firearms and no horses, and speed limits apply throughout.
- Watch for snakes and feral bees, and take care under the big old trees — limbs drop without warning.
- Check Parks Victoria before you go. Environmental works in the northern section of Hattah-Kulkyne run through to December 2026 with temporary track closures, and the Raak and Goosefoot tracks are currently shut from fire damage. Conditions here change.
Staying Connected Out Here
No mobile reception is most of the appeal of the Mallee, and also the one thing worth planning around. If you are working remotely, travelling with kids, or simply want a weather radar you can trust before committing to a sandy track, a Starlink Mini gives you a connection where the phone network does not reach at all. Our Starlink Mini accessories cover the mounting and power side of running one from a vehicle or a camper.
Next
If you are working your way around the state, the Victorian Travel Guide has the Great Alpine Road, the Great Ocean Road and Wilsons Promontory covered — between them they take in most of what is worth driving to in Victoria. Tell us in the comments if you have a Mallee camp we have missed.
