Day Three

Woke last night at 2.00 am feeling FOUL. Screaming headache that painkillers wouldn't touch. Lay awake for hours in agony. Stomach's gone bananas too - seems like food poisoning.

As soon as I heard Ellen open her door, I hauled her into my room. Just not capable of getting up and out. Shaky, fevery, weak and very pathetic.

I talk to a few of the others, give some instructions and hope I'll feel like a human being in a few hours. I've decided I need a larger funnel made of the thicker material to be sure I have a hope of boiling the water.

I manage to stagger up after a few hours, after downing litres and litres of rehydration fluids. Seriously needed salts back in me!

A huge 'funnel' solar oven had begun to take shape. We hung the jar inside, and finally after over an hour, we saw bubbles. Very, very pleased and relieved! Felt awful to have had to get others to help so much - but thought I'd be more likely to survive the day (and the 'finale') by turning up later on.

The solar oven ended up working a treat and boiled water happily. Mike's two filters were harder work than we'd thought, and we needed to use a foot pump to force the liquid through (Producer's note: there wasn’t time to show the foot pump in operation on the finished programme). Theoretically, the water Ian and Ellen collected should have been fine after our treatment. I have to say though, that after starting the day off with food poisoning, I'm a touch relieved I didn't have to try it.

Mars Rover was strikingly impressive. Very exciting to be out in the desert, not able to see where it was going and not sure it would survive the terrain. Amazingly, the signal worked - it was all based on being the right pitch - and we'd screamed so much it's astonishing we didn't override it!