This post is long overdue but still, we’d like to share with you some impressions from our Overland Reunion 2014 that we organized last May, just like we did last year. The reunion has grown into a tradition and each year we have welcomed more past, present, and future overlanders – this year we topped 70 visitors.
Our first reunion, years ago, was with five Dutch couples whom we had met during our Asia journey. It has been a couple of years since all of us could come to the reunion. This year everybody except one was present, so for us it was a get-together with remembering a lot of our first adventures with fellow Asia overlanders from the years 2003-2005.
While I was busy chatting with old friends and making new ones, Coen shared his interest in gadgets and nifty solutions in overland vehicles with kindred spirits.
Others decided that the Overland Reunion was the perfect time and place to try out their newly build overland vehicle.
Coen and I found ourselves studying the vehicle in the photo below, as one of your future projects indeed may be transforming the Land Cruiser into one with a pop-up tent. We like our vehicle as it is now and love our rooftop-tent (read about it here and here), but there is a beginning itch of wanting to be able to stand up in the car, especially when having bad weather for a longer period of time and you spend so much time indoors.
(Edited to add: we meanwhile have remodeled the Land Cruiser, see here and here).
We had Belgians visiting us before, like Anja and Ben, who this year decided it was going to be nice weather and fancied a drive to the woods and swung by unannounced. This year was a first to have Germans and British among our midst: Michael and Juliane Stahl with their kids and Ian King and Barry O’Connor. Fantastic. We hope to welcome more international overlanders in the future!
Like I said, it was great catching up with friends we met on the road, like Marianne and Henk whom we met 10 years ago but have been seeing at this reunion several times, but also overlanders we only know from past reunions, like Har and Mar, or to finally meet overlanders with whom we’ve been in touch for such a long period of time but with whom our roads thus far had never crossed, like Waggel Adventures, Truck Travel and Dutchies go Global.
It was great to meet Bastiaan, of Hella Lights. We have been in touch with him for years and throughout that time he has outfitted the Land Cruiser with indoor and outdoor lighting (which we wrote about here). Dennis, of 4×4 Service Valkenburg, drove from the south of the Netherlands to join us for the event and hand Coen a set of new rear lights and front indicators. Thanks, guys! Your contributions are making our vehicle better each year.
Variety was there, as usual. Manon Ossevoort didn’t have time to drive here on her tractor like last year (read about her tractor trip to the Antarctica here) but did have time to spend the night, together with her recently born daughter Hannah. Others came on their overland motorcycles and apart from the Land Rovers, Land Cruisers and Westfalias there was a variety of bigger rigs.
Thank you all for joining us this year, showing your rigs, your latest gadgets, inventions, creative solutions. Rigs appear to get fancier as years go by, that’s for sure, but don’t let that discourage people from starting their own journey because their budget is low. We started out with a rusted Land Cruiser that we bought for €5000, hardly worked on and simply left, which you can read about here, here, and here.
Do you want to attend? Sign up for the Overland-Reunion newsletter.
Check it out: the Landcruising Adventure Sticker, Magnet & Pin Collection
Get the News
Would you like to stay in the loop on all things Landcruising Adventure?
Sign up for our newsletter to receive the latest news.
No spam – just updates that are infrequent enough not to annoy you, and it’s easy to unsubscribe!
