We flew into Amsterdam last night and stayed in an airport hotel to allow some of the jet-lag to wash away and then this morning took a train to Eindhoven and taxi to our friend Erik's place (the power behind adventure-trucks.com) in the little village of Sint-Michielsgestel where our yellow GXV has been stored for more than a year.

There was a lot to catchup on with Erik as he had undertaken a long list of maintenance tasks on the vehicle in preparation for our arrival - a task for which we were very thankful.

It was a bit strange getting into the drivers seat of such a big vehicle after more than a year but quite quickly familiarity returned. Based on Erik's directions we found a very well provided jumbo supermarket where we stocked up and then onto the motorway towards southern Germany.

Our stop for then night was a road side pullout where we shared the night with a number of semi-trailers.