Today was a bit of a sad and disappointing day.

The Canning opened yesterday so the tour changed from plan B to plan A and continued up the Canning. We decided, and Wylie the tour guide agreed that with our suspension damage we should not continue but do plan C - depart the group and head for Alice Springs.

So everyone filled up with fuel and restocked with food and then headed off after hot showers. Michael and I had a bit of early lunch (meat pie and ice block from the community shop) then headed east 1100km on our own towards Alice Springs. This was a hard thing to do as we don't have a satellite phone and we are still really remote. Before we left we contacted David (our home based emergency person) and arranged for him to call the cavalry if he hasn't heard from us in 6 days.  We are hoping that the suspension does not completely fail before we get there.

We only got 225km today due to the late start and that we have to drive slower and more carefully than usual.

Within the first hour we had seen 2 herds of camels - 4 in the first and 7 in the second. The road isn't too bad - when you compare it to the Canning. We've stopped overnight at Jupiter Wells where they have a bore pump for water - looks freshish and since Michael tasted some of it untreated we'll soon know if it was.

They have an interesting toilet here - just a drop one but the door is a fly screen door so absolutely no privacy.  Not sure why a fly screen for a door when the other 3 walls aren't all the way up to the roof.

Some travellers heading west pulled in to camp and told us about a place to camp tomorrow night called Jagged Rocks Hill about400 km east. We are going to try and make it to there. They also warned us that one of their party was going to let off fireworks later.  A bit irresponsible as the surrounding areas are full of long dead Spinifex grass that catches fire easily.