Thursday 5th September I decided to sleep under the stars again, really nice spot in the sand, had a good nights sleep, though it was very cold in the morning. Keith had a bit of a bad start to the day, noticed his back tyre was flat, then while taking off his rear pannier he snapped the clip, with good inner tubes in short supply, I mended two while Keith sorted out the pannier clip, with the gas running out on the camping stove, changed fuel to mentholated spirits now, not a good start. Still on the road for 08:30, starting with a gentle climb, then getting steeper as the day went on, what we did not account for was the head wind, it was very strong, making the climbing difficult to say the least. With nothing on the road, expect for a possible place at a junction with another road just before a big slat lake at around 45 miles, planned to stop for lunch there, whatever. We just rode on, passing a few Chinese tourist waving at us and taking weird pictures, laying on the road jumping around all a bit strange. Just before the planned lunch stop, my back pannier snapped, causing both bags to fall behind the bike, acting as a brake, luckily I had just levelled out after a short decent and managed to keep the bike upright. The stays holding the pannier bracket to the bike frame behind the seat post had failed, two jubilee clips around the bracket and on to the pannier frame all sorted, Keith rode back down the hill and said why stop at the bottom, then realised it was a mechanical. It was only a few miles to the intended lunch stop, unfortunately there was nothing at the junction expect a workers compound, tried are luck again, with a wave they invited us in, past two barking dogs, into their canteen room, not only pot noodles but there left over rice and cumber chilli thing, best pot noddle ever, even better than the baked bean version, with a cup of coffee to go with it an excellent lunch, matched only by there hospitality, filled our water bottles up and set off again. With the head wind easing of slightly, we made pretty decent time, as we came across another intersection, Linney got excited as he could see a garage up ahead, about 8 miles away, up We finally managed to reach the service station, though we did not hold out much luck, this was ok, coffee, cold drinks and rested up. The next challenge was will they let us onto the toll road? No problem, we sailed through, 6 miles further on another decision, we have been so used to just following the same road for miles after miles, bear off this road onto a minor road,or stay on the toll road. As we had already done 70 odd miles,decided to stay on the toll road and look for a suitable place to camp. It was pleasant riding up through the grass mountains even spotted some wildlife, wild goats, hares and birds of prey. Eventually settle for a camping spot, though it took a bit of maneuvering to get the bikes around the fencing and away from the road.