Woke to a beautiful morning, a little bit chilly but not too bad. We are hoping today to at least get to Jagged Rock Hill which is 400km east. It's 130 km to Kiwirrkurra Community where we will hopefully top up with fuel and send David an update.

Saw a few Curlew's at the side of the road.

About 20 km from Kiwirrkurra we heard some screeching from the suspension and Michael got out to check it again. 

BUGGER - the temporary fix we did is still in place however the bolt is now sitting at an angle due to metal fatigue. It’s not going to last much longer!!!!! We have no phone reception where we are and haven’t passed any cars yet today and there is nowhere to safely stop so we continue on towards Kiwirrkurra at just 20kms an hour.

It’s a long slow drive!! Carefully picking our way along, looking for dust not only in front of us but also behind so that we can warn any approaching drivers that we are slower than a Volvo driver on a Sunday drive. The road isn’t very wide, there are washouts on the sides and corrugations in the middle. (And along the way were the most amazing Sturt Desert Peas but we didn’t dare stop to photograph them).

A few kms from Kiwirrkurra we get phone reception so we quickly text David so that someone knows where we are just in case it fails and phone reception cuts out.

WE MADE IT -  A huge sigh of relief when it held together long enough to get to the community store. It’s still another 12 hours to Alice (800 or so kms) so we know that we will be here awhile, assuming we can arrange a flat bed to pick us up. We popped into the community store to let them know what has happened and to see if there is somewhere we can camp until help comes - they said we could camp in front of the community store (it was closing in a few minutes and wouldn’t reopen until Monday at 9am). There is no community toilet here!!

And then the phone calls started. We are in NRMA Ultimate Care so called them. We have vehicle recovery insurance so called them. We are in WA, 140 kms from the NT border and so got passed around a lot as they tried to work out where best to take us and how we could be recovered.  We’ll need a flat bed truck that can carry a 3.5 tonne vehicle over very very rough roads and can fit 2 adults in. And we need to go to a major place as the fix needs a suspension person rather than just a mechanic. It was a stressful couple of hours working out logistics.  

Whilst all this is happening the local nurse drove passed and stopped to see if we needed help. We explained the situation and he told us it probably wasn’t safe to stay where we were overnight - CRAP. He took Michael up to the community service people to see if we could camp in the services area (behind the barbed wire). They very graciously allowed us to camp here and also to have access to the toilets and showers and also a shelter.  I feel much safer now, so we set up camp at the back of the services area.

We got a call from a tow truck saying they had been contacted and could come get us - at a cost of $8500. They will leave at 5am on Sunday and be here late Sunday night and then drive to Alice Springs on Monday morning. They can fit 2 adults in the truck but it will be squishy. 12 hrs drive over 4wd roads including the Tanami track. (It will be fun). We updated David (our home charlie) that we are ok and were being recovered back to Alice Springs.

In the afternoon Tim from the local community stopped by and asked if we would like a tour.  We jumped at the chance and drove around for about an hour seeing the airport, the local Aboriginal homes, the water purification plant, the bore pump and the garbage tip whilst he shared a bit of information about the town.  

We made dinner in the shelter area and an early bedtime, so that we could update blogs, etc. As we will be sitting around all day tomorrow waiting for the flatbed recovery truck to arrive, we can have a sleep in and a shower in the morning.