Bilung Pool; a huge, unexpected highlight

The excitement of pulling into a new camp site never gets old, and as we rolled into a new place by the name of Bilung Pool, I wondered whether it would be any good, or if it would just be a regular, non special overnighter. It didn’t take long to realise we were onto a winner, and in a big way. It turned out to be a huge, unexpected highlight in our travels, and we’d come back for sure.

This was one of our last stays on the 3 week trip through the Pilbara and Gascoyne, and it was certainly one of the better spots.

For more amazing camp sites, check out our mega post on Camping in WA

Bilung Pool from above
We stumbled across the ultimate oasis
Our spot at Bilung Pool
A truly epic place to camp
Walk down to the reflections
A short walk down to the beautiful pool

Where is Bilung Pool?

You’ll find this place just off the Carnarvon Mullewa Road, roughly 150km south of Gascoyne Junction. It’s not to be confused with Bilyuin Pool, which is also nice (although probably not quite as good) north of Meekatharra.

Morning at Bilung
Incredible views in the morning

What are the roads like?

The Carnarvon Mullewa Road was actually really good when we went through. The bitumen stops a short drive out of Gascoyne Junction (although they are extending it) and then it’s a good quality gravel road all the way down to near Mullewa.

We sat on 90km/h for the large majority of the road, with tyres down at 27, 30 and 33 cold for the front, rear and camper trailer tyres, which seemed to suit pretty well. Our go to tyre pressures for high speed gravel is reducing 30% of the air from your normal road pressures. If you run 45 PSI, that means going down to 30 PSI, which tends to work well on 4WD’s, campers and caravans.

Carnarvon Mullewa Road
The Carnarvon Mullewa Road was really good
Bilung Pool Oasis
There’s not much else around!

Amenities at Bilung Pool

There’s zero amenities at Bilung Pool. No toilets, no water, no anything. You drive through a gate (close it when you come through) and pull up anywhere near the pool, but you have to bring your own amenities (chemical toilet preferred as good luck digging a hole!).

Self sufficient camping
You have to be completely self sufficient

How much does it cost?

Bilung Pool is completely free, and must be part of a station in the area as we saw evidence of cattle wandering around, which is not unusual at all. Please do your part in leaving the area pristine, so it stays open for those after you. That means leaving no rubbish, putting your fires out, not making unnecessary fire pits or leaving toilet paper or waste around the place.

Bilung pool is free
All of this for $0 per night

What’s there, and is it worth a visit?

We were actually blown away by Bilung Pool. From the moment you pull in and find a spot in the shade you know you’ve come to a special place. The gums right near the pool have grown up to the cliffs, and provide the perfect amount of shade for you to pull up next to the edge and get shade to sit under, whilst having your solar still in the sun all day long.

Camped on the cliff
Camped back from the Cliff, overlooking the pool in perfect shade all day

You’d comfortably fit 4 or 5 rigs along the edge of the pool, with a huge amount of room out further, but no shade or views to enjoy.

The pool itself can be climbed down to in a couple of places, with at least one being reasonable with a bit of care, and the others requiring a more adventurous approach. Once at the bottom, you can kick back in the shade and appreciate the permanent waterhole.

When we visited there was a tiny trickle still going in, but I would imagine for the bulk of the year not much would be going in.

Edge of Bilung Pool
You can climb down reasonably easily to the bottom
Bungarra Lizard
We even got to see a big, beautiful Bungarra Lizard!

Can you drive to the bottom of Bilung Pool?

I did see quite a few tracks along the ‘river bed’ and also a few on the drone running along the edge, so you can clearly get down to the bottom, right near the pool.

We spent a couple of minutes following the main track in to see if we could get down, but the idea of having to let tyres down and deal with the risk of getting stuck, vs an amazing camp site overlooking the pool at the top just didn’t seem worth it and we turned around and pulled into a normal camp site.

Obviously you can get to the bottom, and that would mean you could camp metres away from the water in perfect shade, but whether you are allowed to be there, or have to do anything serious to arrive remains to be seen.

At the bottom of the pool
We saw several 4WD tracks, so you can get down but we didn’t investigate too far

Overall, 5 stars from us; its free, open, beautiful, easy to access and you can have a nice, albeit cold swim if you’d like. It was the coldest water I’d been in for a number of weeks!

Bilung Pool was spectacular
There’s not too many camp sites that top this

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