While out for her morning walk Nina found these ants nests (see photo 1) positioned in the middle of a spinifex plant and with their entrance mound covered in spinifex "leaves"; we could not work out whether it was camouflage or some other form of protection.

Throughout the morning we saw a number of camel herds beside, or in the middle of the road. We could not miss the oportunity for a few more photos. This morning's scenery was also quite interesting with a few low mountain ranges beside the road and in the distance, quite pretty patches of desert oaks and spinifex.

The morning ended with a stop at the aboriginal community of Warakurna where there was a roadhouse that sells fuel and some basic supplies. The manager John was also prepared to attempt to repair the puncture from yesterday; although he was clear that there was no guarantee.

Not long after lunch we saw a large US pickup truck (Dodge Ram) towing a caravan approaching from the west when all of a sudden there was a big cloud of dust and he stopped. As we approached we saw clearly that he had a flat tire on the left rear and we offered to help with the change to the spare. The two photos of the flat tire are instructive as this is what often happens on outback roads when a tire gets a puncture; it turns quickly into a shredded tire. This guy drove less than 100 yards after the tire started to deflate. The vehicle had tire pressure sensors. It took about an hour to jack up the heavy vehicle on a compacted sand base and change the tire. During the process another traveler stopped and also pitched in to help.

At the end of our day we pulled into another informal camping ground and while Nina walked around I started driving around to find "exactly the right spot". We immediately noticed that there was a very unhealthy grinding sound coming from the front of the vehicle. A bit of careful listening narrowed it down to the right front wheel. The only option seemed to be to jack up the offending wheel and explore a bit more. As luck would have it the problem turned out to be a small stone lodged between the brake rotor and the dust shield inboard of the rotor. A bit of levering with a tent peg soon dislodged the stone and all was fixed.

EXCEPT - that in the excitement/stress of the stone-in-the-brake incident I got flustered and soon after the brake incident I forgot to release one of the latches on the tent BEFORE trying to raise the tent. Result a big BANG and one of the cables in the tent raising/lowering mechanism snapped.

At least for tonight I have been able to raise the tent on the remaining 3 correctly cabled lifting arms. It will be interesting to see what problems raise their head when I try to lower the tent tomorrow morning.