We had a good start getting away on time at 8am to set off for the Tenant Creek control stop.
Wanting to get to Alice Springs today we tried to maintain a good speed but we hit clouds. Lots of clouds.
A weather front from the west covered the whole sky and just got darker and darker. We had much less energy available from the array than we had hoped for and we had to slow down to avoid draining the batteries too much.
As it became apparent that we would not get to Alice Springs by 5pm we bagan looking for alternative stops.
Coming down one of the hills into a blind turn, we were overtaken by a road train swerving in so quickly after passing the solar car we thought it would wipe it off the road. The only person who wasnt terrified was the driver of the solar car!
After travelling further under a patchy sky with a lot of cloud, we were in a situation where we had a choice between stopping early or continuing and risk draining the batteries.
We decided to stop at Ti Tree 193km short of Alice Springs for the night and arrived well before the 5pm finishing time to set the array up at an angle to collect the afternoon sun. We then discovered we had been running on underinflated front tyres for some of the day which may have accounted for some of the extra drain on the battery pack. Hoping for better weather tomorrow.
