Lake Hillier / Middle Island, Australia

The Recherche Archipelago, off the south coast of Western Australia, is a sprawling maze of 105 islands studded with more than 1,200 hidden reefs. In its center lies the largest landmass—Middle Island. Sheltered from the Southern Ocean by a ribbon of bone-white dunes and a dense eucalyptus forest sits Lake Hillier, famous for its deep pink water. Behind the postcard beauty, however, lurks a grim history that earned the spot its sinister reputation.

For years no one knew why the water was pink, and rumors of dark magic multiplied. Only much later did chemical tests show that the lake is a self-contained ecosystem teeming with polyextremophiles. The rosy hue isn’t a trick of the light; it’s caused by complex biochemical reactions. Specialized bacteria and micro-algae produce protective pigments to survive the brutal sunshine and a salinity ten times higher than seawater. Despite the lake’s unsettling, blood-like color, the water is perfectly safe, and its high density lets a person float effortlessly.

Death shadowed the first Europeans who set foot here. The lake was recorded in the early 19th century by the British expedition of Matthew Flinders. Instead of being named for a monarch or its discoverer, it honors William Hillier, a crewman who died a slow, agonizing death from dysentery on the island. The boatswain, Charles Douglas, succumbed soon after. Those early graves were the first hints that the archipelago did not welcome outsiders.

To understand the “curse,” you have to look through the eyes of the Wudjari Noongar, whose connection to this land stretches back more than 13,000 years. In their Dreaming, time is nonlinear and ancestral spirits inhabit every feature of the landscape. Any natural anomaly carries sacred meaning, and Lake Hillier has always been a place of potent, ancient magic. When senseless violence spills blood, the Noongar believe the ground itself grows “sick,” storing dark energy. That is exactly what happened in the 19th century when whalers and sealers arrived, bringing unprecedented brutality toward the Aboriginal people.

The island’s darkest chapter came mid-century, when Middle Island became the stronghold of John “Black Jack” Anderson—Australia’s only officially documented pirate. Towering and charismatic, Anderson ruled with an iron fist. His crew robbed passing ships and routinely abducted Aboriginal women, enslaving them and slaughtering men and infants. Their camp stood beside the pink lake, whose endless supply of salt cured their stolen meat.

Later the schooner Mountaineer wrecked on the island’s reefs. Survivors staggered into Anderson’s camp, and the eighteen-year-old Dorothea Newell was forced to become his concubine. A feud over stolen coins soon split the gang. Anderson’s response was savage: he marooned two dissenters—including Dorothea’s brother—on the mainland without food or water. They survived only thanks to Aboriginal aid and reported the pirate to the authorities. Anderson was arrested but acquitted on Dorothea’s testimony. Yet the curse he unleashed swallowed him as well—on Christmas night, his own men shot him in his sleep. They killed an Aboriginal woman who shared the tent and dumped both bodies into an unmarked grave.

The island’s eerie aura lingers. On the southern shore sits treacherous Keyhole Bay, walled by sheer cliffs and riddled with underwater caves. Treasure hunters swear Anderson hid his plunder there, protected by magic and the ocean’s deadly force. Visitors call the place malevolent; some claim the wind carries the voices of the murdered pirate and his victims, and that Black Jack’s spirit still prowls the island.

From 100 Cursed Places · Fern Flower Press