To Broome - Day 5 - I picked a bad week to give up drinking ;)

Early start with a trip to Woolies to buy some food.

Arrived at the start of the Tanami - at least it's open this time!!  Easy cruising for the first 200k's it's either double or single lane bitumen.

Although, there are always dangers just around the corner....

Just for the record, kangaroos are either deaf or stupid.  Maybe both.  After a quick top up of fuel at Tilmouth Well and then Yendemu, the road turns into gravel....ok, dirt.  About 100km further on, I noticed the steering required a lot of right lock to stay on the straight and narrow. Then suddenly, I was a passenger rather than the driver.  The troopy veered right across the road.  The steering wheel had no effect.  Fortunately, the brakes still worked.  A bit of a look underneath revealed a tie rod had disconnected on the left wheel.
I waved down a Granite's mine vehicle, with Greg and Troy onboard.  They helped me work out how to get the tie rod back in position.  But extra parts would be required to get it working.

So, I took to walking back only the road looking for parts.  I found a spring 40m away, the second half of the cup 300m away, and the most important part, the threaded end almost 400m away.

Looking back from where I found the last part. 
I then waved down another car.  Brian helped me fit the parts and supplied the final part - a split pin (it only needed gentle persuasion).  It took a few k's to get some confidence that it would hold.
A long and stressful afternoon drive was followed by an amazing sunset.

And a small fire to add some warmth to the night.