G,day from the outback! Fuz and I set off for the next leg of our travels on Saturday the 6th January and came to a sudden halt on Saturday 6th of January! We only managed to get 600km away from Sydney when van completely seized up, made a bit of a racket and stopped dead at the side of the road. We had literally just passed the welcome sign for the town of Nyngan, which is on the southern edge of the middle of nowhere. I don't think we could have been any luckier though, because the town before Nyngan was 80km and the one after is 120km so it could have been much worse. We aslo had no phone signal, due to vodafone giving up 50km out of Sydney, so we really could have been in a much worse predicament. We had van serviced the week before Scott and Susan came over and had spent $2000 on it in order to get it up to scratch for out travels, so we were particularly surprised that we had conked out. We called the NMRA (Aussie AA equivalent) and the dodgiest looking character turned up to inspect our van. He was especially ginger (eyelashes, freckles, hair) and had a grand total of two teeth in his particularly crooked mouth. He also looked like he hadn't seen a bar of soap in several weeks and neither had his clothes. I know he's a mechanic, but it's a far cry from the uniform the AA are expected to turn up in when they rescue you! Oh, and he completely ignored everything I said, obviously believing that ladies should be seen and not heard! In fairness, he knew his stuff about cars and diagnosed a f*@&ed rear diff. This particularly surprised us, given that we had the rear diff replaced only three weeks earlier... It turns out that the garage we used in Sydney had not replaced a plug properly and had therefore seriously fluffed up. However, no help to us at the point in time as the garage in Sydney had closed and the one in Nyngan did not open until the Tuesday, leaving us stranded in Nyngan until van is fixed. We moved into a lovely caravan park, which is next to the river and the current situation is that we are waiting on a part from Sydney... Nyngan is on the edge of the outback and is very rural and very HOT. Today is 40 degrees and as you may have guessed, we are hanging out in the library to avoid the heat, seeing as the tent does not have air con (not even with the windows open). The town has a couple of shops, an RSL (kind of like the Ex-Servicemans Clubs), two motels (one of which we stayed at the first night because NMRA man would not give us a lift to the caravan park and we had no idea where it was!), a library, a courthouse, a museum (shut, even though it says it should be open!) a couple of boozers (too skint/scared to go into them) and an olympic swimming pool (which is only two bucks to get into for as long as you want, grand). The craic at the van park is pretty limited, most of the permanent folks are steaming by mid afternoon. But they have all been nice to us, offering lifts (not as far as Perth, but definitely as far as town) and words of advise/ wisdom such as "Be careful in the heat" and "Be careful in the outback" and "don't stop if you run anyone over"..?! The owners are really nice and keep the park up to a good standard. They have an emu, two turkeys and three roos that wander about the site and an aviary full of different birds. There is an abundance of wildlife and there is a really chilled, laid back feel about the place. There are also lots of beasties, bugs and flies (what are their purpose??) and I am again covered in particularly un-attractive lumps that have developed after being bitten a million times. I also have a swollen big toe (no idea how) and have taken anti-histamine to reduce the swelling. Fuz has been choked with cold, but apart from that, all fit and healthy at this end! So, hopefully van will be fixed tomorrow and we can head off on our travels again by Saturday. I don't think we can handle too much longer in the excitement (or heat) that is Nyngan (unless the museum opens of course). Hope everyone is okay, it was great to hear from folks over the festive period. All the best, Em and FuzXXXXXXXX