9am start today. We are heading to Well 26. Unfortunately the day didn't start to well for us. Our suspension noises are getting worse. We stopped at Well 23 which was the old fuel dump site for traveller's on the CSR. Nowadays, fuel is available at some of the communities along the way.

Our suspension noises were getting worse, so I got Wylie to come into the car whilst I drove up the track a bit to see if we could work out where the noises were coming from. When we got back some of the other guys took a look and we concluded that the noise was coming from where the melted rubber bushes were sitting around the bolt holding the front of the leaf spring to the chassis. The nut and bolt seem to be holding with the fix we did yesterday, but the bolt head is moving around because of the damage to the rubber bushes. We could see evidence of bare metal on the chassis mount around the bolt hole. I guess eventually this will wear through and fracture so we are driving the car as easy as we can towards civilization. We have moved to the back of the convoy so we can take our time driving the corrugations and sand hills.

The dunes getting to Well 24 were quite challenging, being soft and bumpy, and we couldn't get to Well 25 due to flooding on the mud flat around it. As we are now traveling at the back of the group, the dunes are getting very cut up by the other cars, before we get to them. One of the cars got stuck near the top of a dune. We went to dig him out so he could reverse back, but he eventually needed to be winched up the hill by one of the other cars. They were not successful in pinching him up, so eventually he had to reverse back down the dune for a longer run up, which made the difference and he got over the top this time.

When it was our turn, I did the hill in high range first gear, but as I was half way up, alarms started chiming on the dashboard. I had to keep my eyes on the track, so once we made it to the top, I checked what the issue was and we had actually driven up this difficult dune with the handbrake on!

The remainder of the drive coming into Well 26 was reasonably OK, with not to much noise coming from the car. Another early dinner at 430pm, then early to bed again.

Fingers crossed for a good day of driving tomorrow.