The weather was looking worse when they awoke, dark clouds filled the sky and it was fairly chilly. They were still in the sand travelling alongside the road which was being built. Having stopped for breakfast the other teams who they'd camped with 2 nights previously caught them up, they'd only camped a few miles apart the previous night. The others set off 10 minutes earlier after having a cup of tea and they all expected to see each other somewhere later during the day.

  They crossed a very rough bridge trying to avoid the massive pot holes, a new one was being built alongside and the workers were standing around on the new uprights without safety harnesses or guard rails even though it was fairly windy.

They managed to get back onto the new road but this again only lasted for 10 minutes before they were back in the sand again. The sky was getting darker and it wasn't getting any warmer either. They passed a rough looking solitary camel which was shedding it's coat for summer, they also saw lots of eagles flying around.

About 1 pm it started raining and 10 minutes later they were having problems with traction in the sand and had to stop, Alan had been down this way a few years previously in a truck and had the same trouble and said the only thing they could do was to wait till it stopped raining and had dried out a bit.

2 hours after stopping it had started to dry but the sand was still very slippery so they decided to try and get up out of the sand and onto the old road thinking that although previously it was too rough to drive on it would be harder and provide more traction. Alan and Bernie went first but only made it 100 meters before stopping. Here the road had massive ruts running down the middle were the trucks drive which would have grounded their vehicles out had they tried to drive there  and although the edges were smoother they cambered towards the edge and they was a great danger of slipping down the bank. Paul and Scott tried the other side of the road but only managed to get 50 meters past the other 2, their van had enough traction to move but it was slipping all the time towards the edge and the threat of sliding off and turning the van over was too great to risk.

Around 5 pm the rain had stopped and there was a lot of wind blowing so hopes were raised that they could get going again, one and a half hours later they managed to get the van along another 50 meters after digging a trench for the wheel to run in but it again got to dangerous when the van kept slipping to within 20 cm of the edge. They decided to call it a day and hope that overnight it would dry and could get going again in the morning.