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Day 1 – Perth to Bilyuin Pool
- Spicilicious
- Aug 11, 2022
- 3 min read
Updated: Sep 28, 2022
Thursday 11/08/2022
Despite the lack of sleep, Daniel and I were up and bouncing, ready to hit the road by 5am. We packed our pillows, grabbed an iced coffee for Daniel and a Berocca for me, and set off! Google maps gave us an ETA at Bilyuin Pool of about 3pm; almost a 10-hour drive. We were in for a long one.
Traffic heading out of Perth was alright, with the early starters already on the freeway. By the time the sun poked its head over the horizon we had cleared the city and were heading up the Great Northern Highway. We had to stop at the Bindoon Bakehaus for some breaky and another coffee, then continued on. Daniel and I agreed to take 3hr shifts with the driving to break the trip up and share the load.
The DMAX ran good and true, but we watched in dismay as our fuel consumption slowly climbed. We stopped in at a few petrol stations to stretch and refuel, one of which was Payne’s Find. Daniel, as per usual, had to buy some food. Now, it might have been the hunger talking, but he is adamant that it was the best home-made-style burger he’d ever had, and should we ever be passing through the area again there would be no choice but to stop here. Other that this life-changing burger, the trip was fairly uneventful. We listened to some podcasts to pass the time and I got overly excited about the wildflowers. I’m quite sure Daniel was rolling his eyes by my third or fourth “Look, more wildflowers!” while excitedly pointing to them on each side of the road. Much to his dismay, this continued for the remainder of the trip.
Before we knew it, we were arriving at Bilyuin Pool. Luckily, we had discovered a tip online that said NOT to take the first turn that Google Maps tells you to, and instead take “…the one with the sign after the parking bay on the left.” These directions were good and true and took us straight to the entrance – A small dirt road about 1km after the road turned to gravel. We drove in and discovered one of the most beautiful camping spots I’ve ever been to. The ‘pool’ had a decent-ish amount of water considering it’s technically the middle of the dry season up North. There were quite a few great camping spots right at the waters edge under the shade of some small-ish trees. Unfortunately for us, these spots were all taken by some fellow travellers, most of which were in caravans. In saying that, we still managed to find a good spot with a short path to the bank of the water. So, we parked up and went about setting up our camp for the night.
After such a long day and on so little sleep, we were keen for an early dinner and bed. So, we took some mandatory sunset photos, played a bit of bocce to kill some time, and reheated some frozen casserole we had brought from home. There may or may not have been a small accident in which I threw half of our dinner on the ground, but we won’t mention that here. We marvelled at how well the new kitchen setup was going for our first ever test, and enjoyed the new Coleman stove, before heading up to bed. It was a beautifully quiet and peaceful night with no wind, although it was quite cold. Our first ever sleep in the new tent was exciting, and we again marvelled over the new setup and the spacious tent before quickly falling asleep.
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