They woke up around 5 am hoping it wasn't raining, and to their delight it was looking bright and the wind was blowing quite strong drying out the sand, so the prospect of getting going again looked good.

It was still a bit slippery so they dug some tracks for the wheels to follow, this worked and they got the van further up the track to where the ruts had been flattened by others crossing the road. They got themselves down the slope and off of the road, they then walked back to help Alan & Bernie. The road on their side was still slippery and after looking for a point in the lower ground off the edge of the road that wasn't waterlogged they dug a bit of the bank away so the car wouldn't ground out and Alan drove it back down into the steppe.

After sorting themselves out and having a cup of tea they made a start in the sand tracks again. Although it had dried out enormously there were still lots of puddles lying in the tracks which were still slippery if driven into and also they didn't know how deep the holes under the puddles were so had to try and straddle all the water. The weather now was sunny and the temperature was getting warmer by the minute, if only the rain had been a day later they wouldn't have had a problem!

It wasn't long before they found tarmac again, although it was very rough with lots of potholes at least they didn't have to worry about getting bogged down anymore. They were now heading for the Aral sea, and a few miles away they met the other teams they had been with in the steppe the previous day. They had managed to make the town of Aral the night before, but after explaining the condition of the hotel maybe being stuck in the van for the night wasn't so bad after all. The others were searching for a ship's graveyard without much luck, they parted company again, the others went searching for dead ships and Paul, Scott, Alan & Bernie headed into the town to get fresh supplies of beer.

The Aral sea was once the fourth largest lake in the world, but  it has now lost 90% of it's original 42200 square mile area! It started losing water in the 1960's after the rivers that fed it were diverted by Soviet Union irrigation projects. This has had major effects not just on people but on animals and flora. The town of Aral which was originally on the waters edge, was 60 miles away from the water at one point, although after various dam projects is now 'only' a mere 15 miles from water.

Leaving Aral the sun was shining, it was  warm and they were feeling much happier being back onto 'normal' roads, which now meant instead avoiding the camels and cows that were on the roads before at 25 mph they were now avoiding them travelling at 50 mph. Another team 'Strange Rovers' who had passed them while they were stuck in the rain caught them up from behind, they had stopped overnight in Aral and had left after the 4 had passed through. A few miles later the Range Rover stopped beside the road and after saying they were ok the 4 carried on thinking that a hotel and shower would be nice for the night.

Only a few minutes later they got a phone call from the Range Rover, they had had a crash and asked Paul & Scott to go back to try and help straighten the car out, Alan & Bernie said they'd go ahead and find a hotel in the next town. The Stange Rovers had hit a local van from behind after problems with their brakes, there was no damage to the other van, so they were sat on the side of the road on their own. After straightening the front of the car out as best they could they went back to find the other 2. Without repeating all the bad language that was said, the only hotel they could find wasn't up to scratch, something about not being fit for a dog was mentioned. They had had a text from the other group of teams, who had passed on where they'd camped further down the road, so they made their way to them to all camp together.

Camp was made next to the road, there was a lot of small shrubbery around so a camp fire was made to fend off some of the million or so mosquitoes. Strange Rovers had turned one part into a workshop trying to fix their broken Range Rover. The problem was a worn out inner wheel bearing on the back axle, and as the wheel had been wobbling the brake shoes had fallen out causing the brakes to fail, they also had a leak in the radiator which required regular topping up with water, so in proper comradeship the 2 team members were left to fix it while the others drunk beer round the fire.

Mosquito's were everywhere and looking in the van Paul found a small army of them flying round a light which was left on, so he decided to get out a small tent he'd brought along in case the van had broke and he'd had to carry on with another team, while Scott said it wasn't that bad and he'd kip in the van.