Little Blue Lake
flooded sinkhole dive site in South Australia
Little Blue Lake is a water-filled sinkhole (“cenote”) in the Australian state of South Australia, in the state's south-east in the locality of Mount Schank about 20 kilometres (12 mi) south of the municipal seat of Mount Gambier. It is notable locally as a swimming hole and nationally as a cave diving site. It is managed by the District Council of Grant and has been developed as a recreational and tourism venue.
Naming
The sinkhole's name is attributed to its similar appearance to Mount Gambier’s much larger volcanic Blue Lake and the property of its water to sometimes turn blue in colour during summer in a similar manner to the Blue Lake. However in more recent times the sinkhole generally remains green in colour throughout most of the year. This is believed by some to be due to groundwater pollution from agricultural fertilizers increasing the nutrient levels. The lake is also known as Baby Blue and is referenced in caving literature by its Cave Exploration Group of South Australia (CEGSA) Inc. identification number 5L9.
Description
The lake is approximately 20 kilometres (12 mi) south of the City of Mount Gambier, on the north side of Mount Salt Road (near Mount Schank) about 3.5 kilometres (2.2 mi) west of the Riddoch Highway, which is the main road between Mount Gambier and the coastal fishing township of Port MacDonnell. The sinkhole is located on crown land in section 963 in the cadastral unit of the Hundred of MacDonnell.
“Little Blue Lake” enters the record as flooded sinkhole dive site in South Australia. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Little, Blue and Lake can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 1, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q16894215. Authority coordinates are -37.928, 140.680. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.
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This entry incorporates text from “Little Blue Lake” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.