Coordinates: Raymond Island, Australia
The nights of Australia's lakes are lit up by the glow of luminous algae.
This forming condition is rare and perfect. Starting with a series of bushfires in 2006 and then 2007 to 2008, something unusual happened that year. Due to the scale of the fires and floods, large amounts of ash and nitrogen-rich material washed into Lake Gippsland in southeastern Australia, causing bacteria to multiply in large numbers.
The luminous algae are multiplied in large numbers, and the algae appear as dark red patches during the day, replacing the more common green polycoccal algae. But luminous algae have another trick: it glows at night.
In the summer of 2008 and 2009, the shores of Lake Gippsland glowed faintly blue at night as bacteria in the water were stirred. Anyone who swims at night will find the water glittering around them.
Since then, the lake's bioluminescence has waned — a good thing because the proliferation of bacteria is detrimental to other life in the lake, and it could take a long time for a bioluminescent event of this magnitude to occur on the lake again.
However, those willing to swim at night in Gippsland can still catch a faint glow on a regular basis during the summer months of the year.