Lake Hillier, Australia

Lake Hillier, is a lake on Middle Island, the largest of the islands and islets that make up the Recherche Archipelago, Western Australia. The most notable feature of this lake is its pink colour. It is such a significant distinguishing feature of the archipelago that air passengers often take note of it. The colour is permanent, and does not alter when the water is taken in a container. The length of the lake is about six hundred meters (3/8 mile). The lake is surrounded by a rim of sand and a dense woodland of paperbark and eucalyptus trees with a narrow strip of sand dunes covered by vegetation separating it to the north from the Southern Ocean.

[caption id="attachment_546" align="aligncenter" width="594"] Lake Hillier, Australia[/caption]

The island and lake are thought to have been first charted by the Flinders expedition in 1802. Captain Flinders is said to have observed the pink lake after ascending the island's peak. John Thistle, the ship's master, collected some of the lake's water, which he found to be saturated with salt. Although the source of the pink colour has not been definitively proven in the case of Lake Hillier, the pink colour of other salt lakes (e.g., Pink Lake) in the region arises from a dye created by the organisms Dunaliella salina and Halobacteria. Another hypothesis is that the pink colour is due to red halophilic bacteria in the salt crusts.

Despite the unusual hue, the lake exhibits no known adverse effects upon humans. From above the lake appears a solid bubble gum pink, but from the shoreline it looks more like a clear pink hue is in the water. The shoreline is also covered in salt crust deposits.

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Tequendama Falls Museum, Colombia

The Tequendama Falls Museum of Biodiversity and Culture is an upcoming museum in San Antonio del Tequendama, Colombia. The museum overlooks Tequendama Falls on the Bogotá River. Before renovation, the building was an abandoned hotel, known as the Tequendama Falls Hotel (Hotel Salto del Tequendama) and was rumored to be haunted.

[caption id="attachment_541" align="aligncenter" width="594"] Tequendama Falls Museum[/caption]

In 1923, the building was constructed as a mansion by the architect Carlos Arturo Tapias, as a symbol of the joy and elegance of the elite citizens of the 20s. "The Mansion of Tequendama Falls", as the house was called, was built during the presidency of Pedro Nel Ospina (1922-1926). Its exterior features French architecture. The Tequendama Falls Hotel was reached by train from Bogota.

[caption id="attachment_542" align="aligncenter" width="594"] Tequendama Falls Hotel[/caption]

For a year starting in July 1950, the building was reconstructed into an eighteen story hotel. Gabriel Largacha was the designer and Domenico Parma was the constructor. The hotel was then abandoned in the 90s for more than two decades due to river contamination. The Institute of Natural Sciences of the National University of Colombia and the Ecological Farm Foundation of Porvenir are jointly in charge of the renovations to convert the hotel into a museum. The museum plans to include exhibitions on subterranean ecosystems.

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Nara Dreamland, Japan

Nara Dreamland was a theme park near Nara, Japan which was built in 1961 and inspired by Disneyland in California. On August 31, 2006, Nara Dreamland closed permanently.

The entrance to the park was designed to look almost identical to Disneyland, including the Train depot, a Main Street, U.S.A. and the familiar Sleeping Beauty Castle at the hub. It also had a Matterhorn-type mountain (with a Matterhorn Bobsleds-type ride, called Bobsleigh), and the skyway running through it, as well as an Autopia-type ride and a monorail. The park also had its own mascots, Ran-chan and Dori-chan, two kids dressed as bearskinned guards.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amCZA877cnY?rel=0]

The park contained several rides prior to closing, including: aska, a wooden roller coaster based on The Cyclone at Coney Island, screw Coaster, an Arrow Dynamics designed double corkscrew steel roller coaster, Bobsleigh, a steel roller coaster modeled after the Matterhorn Bobsleds, fantasy Coaster, Kid's Coaster, Figure-8 monorail.

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