Where is the world's cleanest lake - the only one with "almost distilled" water

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

The cleanest lake in the world is called quite simply - Blue Lake. It is located in a hollow between the mountains of the Southern Alps in New Zealand in the protected area of Lake Nelson National Park. The amazing Blue Lake is not only because of its absolutely magical color of water, but precisely because the water in it is so transparent and colorless that the bottom of the lake can be seen even at 80 meters depth.

To imagine 80 meters, you need to mentally put two 9-storey buildings on top of each other - and add a few more meters. And all this water column in New Zealand's Blue Lake (Rotomairewhenua - in Maori language) is completely transparent, as if the lake was filled with distilled water.

From a height, however, the lake fully justifies its name - from the slope of the mountains, the lake looks bright blue, in places almost ultramarine. Water enters this lake from a neighboring lake - Lake Constance. This river runs partly through the forest, partly underground, and on its way the water is naturally filtered from all kinds of impurities.

Before scientists explored Blue Lake, the Te Waikoropupu spring in Golden Bay, where the very first collision of local Maori residents and Europeans who arrived on their ships, held the palm for the purity of the water (therefore, this bay was called "Assassin's Bay"). The water in this bay can be seen 63 meters deep, and for a long time it was believed that there was simply no other such clean place on earth. However, it turned out that the main rival is literally several tens of kilometers away.

The lake was first investigated by local hydrologist Rob Merrilis and expressed his assumptions to hydrologist Dr. Rob Davis-Coley, who, in fact, at one time proved that the source in Golden Bay is the cleanest on earth. In the end, both Rob teamed up and in 2009 went to Blue Lake for more thorough research. To confirm or deny their assumptions, the researchers turned to another specialist - Mark Gall specializes in the optical study of ocean waters. Together, they flew six times in a helicopter over the lake for various measurements and found out that, indeed, the water in the Blue Lake can be seen at 70-80 meters. “Theoretically, the transparency of distilled water is just about 80 meters, at least, they lead to such results laboratory tests,”says Dr. Davis-Coli. - "So the water of the Blue Lake is very close in terms of its indicators to absolutely clean water."

The lake is located in the territory of the National Park, which means that there are no settlements or highways nearby, and people can stop at the lake only in tents, getting here on foot. New Zealand is very careful about its nature, and therefore is trying to preserve its natural resources as intact as possible.

What other natural wonders there are in New Zealand, you can see in our selection of photos "Paradise on Earth".