Today we are heading to the Rudall River National Park and the Desert Queen Baths camping area. This is the most remote national park in Australia.

We left the campsite at 830am as usual and immediately hit the corrugations, although they were not as bad as some we have travelled over.

Arrived at Watrara Pool around 1030am for morning tea. It is another oasis in the desert and is a permanent water source out here. It was hard to leave this nice spot.

Back on the tracks, they became very rocky, with lots of dry river crossings and even some very soft sandy sections as we drove through long stretches of the Rudall river.

We arrived in camp around 230pm and started to set up as we are having a rest day here tomorrow at the Desert Queen Baths.

Whilst Leanne was filling up her water bottle, she happened to look down and see a large bolt sticking out of the rear suspension leaf spring. It was hanging about 2/3 out and at an angle. This is the bolt that was holding the front of the leaf spring pack in place. MAJOR ISSUE!!

After getting Wylie our guide to have a look, we worked out we would need to jack up the chassis to take the load off the spring, so that we could get the bolt back in place. Unfortunately this didn't work. By this time, some of the other guys came to see what the problem was. We talked through a few different options and decided to try jacking up the rear of the car from the tow bar mounting. This partially helped but we found that the top leaf of the spring pack was jammed in the shackle mount and we couldn't get it to move. A few hits with a steel mallet on the leaf spring still wouldn't move it and the bolt was still jammed at a bad angle.

We decided to use another bottle jack and move the whole suspension leaf forward as its mounting at the rear is on a pivot which helps it move. Winding up this bottle jack seemed to be helping and one of the guys tried to free up the jammed end using a tyre iron. This was working as we got movement in the bolt and were able to get it to move back into place.

We no longer had the nut for the end of the bolt so we started searching through everyone's spares for the right size (22mm - note to self, need to get a size 22 spanner). We couldn't find one with the right thread so it looked like our fix for the bolt would not be successful. Then one of the guys came up with a box of random size nyloc nuts he had bought in Port Augusta on the way to Uluru. It was the right size for our bolt!! We are back in business.

Overall, our repair took about 2.5 hours with 6 people's equipment and knowledge and lots of trial and error. A big thanks to everyone for getting us mobile again. This is one of the main reasons why we paid to come on a tag along tour.