Clutch issue? Advice needed.

[Cuppa]

Yesterday we drove a 100km round trip. On the way home with around 25kms to go we started noticing a noise whenever I let out the clutch pedal. It was a squeaky kind of a noise & I could feel it with my foot on the pedal. It seemed to be worse if I let the pedal out quickly. Sometimes letting the pedal out carefully & gently there was no noise or feel through the pedal. At first I thought the feel was just the rubber sole of my shoe slipping a bit on the rubber pedal pad - but that wasn't it, I only mention it in an attempt to describe how it felt.

Normal smooth operation when pushing the clutch pedal in. No noise etc.

Operation of the clutch did not seem to be affected (no dragging/slipping/juddering, gearchanging normal) & I thought perhaps dust had got into the pedal pivoting mechanism & I decided to give it a squirt of lube today.

However it turns out that the pivot mechanism is fairly high up below the dash making it impossible to see what was going on.

So no lube.

I tried operating the pedal this morning, both with & without engine running. (Not driving, just stationary). No noise, & no 'feel' through the pedal.

What I did notice however was that if I pumped the pedal several times the pedal feel would stiffen up, not a lot but was noticeable. More so with the engine running.

This made me wonder if perhaps I had a hydraulic fluid leak...... but no evidence of any leak around the 'actuating arm' on the gearbox & the reservoir fluid level is on the max line (actually about 3mm above the max line.) EDIT. Just had MrsTea operating the clutch whilst I observed fluid level in master cylinder. It didn't go up or down.

So I'm now uncertain as to whether I have a problem or not. My gut feeling is that I have I have picked up something early & that it is probably wise to get it sorted before heading into more remote areas of the Kimberley. We will now be in Broome for a month when we leave the Dampier Peninsula so that would be the time to get stuff sorted if it needs it. I'm wondering if it may be the clutch master cylinder on the way out.

We will be covering at least another 3-400kms before we are situated back in Broome, if the master cylinder were on the way out (or anything else for that matter) are there any specific signs/symptoms I should observe for?

Thanks
Cuppa