Today was a mission. Over a thousand kilometers to cover in a car with a top speed of 75mph (up 10mph since sorting the brakes in Zurich!).
The alarms went off at 4.30am. We were on the road by 5am. Tim had first watch. The rest of us slept. I woke breifly as we went through a really poor town in Poland, which looked rough as hell, but before we knew it we were in Germany and playing dodge the Porche on the Autobahn.
We hammered along for hour after hour until Tim mistakenly pulled into the fast lane in front of something blurry which squeezed through the smallest of gaps with his horn on full blast. At that point we realised that Tim had been driving for nearly 8 hours straight so I took the helm.
Dave eventually came round in order to take over from me, and we eventually arrived in Cologne after a little over 1 hours. We met with a 'friend of the family', who Tim had arranged to have some dinner with. Following this our misterious guide wisked us off for a late night tour of...
THE TOYOTA F1 FACTORY!
To say it was impressive would be a major understatement. I would love to show everyone a million photos, but we had our cameras taken from us at the door... damn! The technology is so far out there it is difficult to convey any idea of the kind of stuff they are doing on a daily basis. Surfice to say, Tim, Dave and myself walked round in a state of awe; feeling like kids in the worlds biggest sweet shop. Fiona just looked bemused. When handed a wishbone which wieghed less than a bag of sugar she said "Cool! ... what is it?".
Anyway; It was awesome, in the origional sense of the word.
We got to bed at about midnight, looking forward to the first lie-in since leaving the UK.
