Today, almost exactly a month after I have landed back home in Brisbane, Australia I closed the last chapter of my Asian journey by getting my loyal Kawa back home from the port. This experience only confirmed and underlined what I already knew before – I don’t want to deal with ocean shipping ever again. If the experience was not great compared to air freight when I was shipping the bike from Darwin to Kuala Lumpur it was even worse the second time around on the journey from Shanghai to Brisbane.

Not only it took 3 weeks of wait again but I also had to wait for almost another week before the local shipping agent made the bike available for pickup. Then the hassle I had to go through and especially the amount of money I had to pay just to get the bike from the port had completely taken me aback. Well, I guess they have to make you wait to make it seem like a big job to take the crate out of the container so that they can charge you 620 dollars for it… No, that is not an error. You read correctly: 620 Aussie dollars for port charges! I did spent a day trying to find out what I could do about the charges and the result basically is that these are pretty much standard port charges all across Australian ports. What this tells you is that the port industry in Australia is pretty crooked (right after the building industry as somebody pointed out to me). No really, how can they justify charging an individual over 600 dollars just to pick his own bike up from the port?!

This was not the last bad news, neither it was the last charge I had to swallow. After being instructed by the local shipping agent that my bike would be ready for pickup on Thursday I decided to go there on that day as I suspected that I might actually need two days to arrange everything that’s involved and didn’t want to drive 300 kilometers twice just because of the coming weekend. When I actually got there and visited the shipping agent’s office to pay the 620 bucks they informed me that my crate has not yet been removed from the container and that I would be lucky if it would still be the same day. I was paying these guys 620 bucks just to use their forklift to get my crate out of the container and after almost a week and after they said it was ready they tell me that it is actually not!?! You can imagine that I was quite angry and I let them know that. I asked them to try harder and went to arrange the customs to the city. (If you ever went through dealings in sea ports did you ever wonder why can’t they have all the people that are almost always necessary to process incoming goods at the same place and why you actually have to travel from one side of the city to the other to get things done? I do wonder a lot.)

After getting over a little problem of having three carnet pages stamped for temporary import with no stamp to prove re-exportation everything went quick and easy with the customs. The bike was cleared subject to quarantine. I have to explain this shortly for the readers not familiar with Australian quarantine laws. You see, Australia has been evolving for thousands of years isolated from the rest of the world. This fact led not only to Australia having some very unique animals running (or hopping :-) ) on its surface but it also led to Australia being free of many pests and diseases that are common at other parts of the world. So after some learning period and after some big stuff-ups like introducing rabbits that ate (and are still eating) half of the continent’s vegetation having no natural predators here or like introducing predators like domestic cats that the native fauna has no defense against and is not ready for, the Australians introduced quarantine laws that are being made tougher and tougher with time. These laws should protect the natural environment of Australia as well as the farming business that accounts for large proportion of Australian exports. So to comply with these laws nobody is permitted to carry any meat or milk products from outside Australia into the country, air carriers have to spray the cabins of their airplanes with insecticide to kill any potential foreign insects that might be present in the airplane before they land on Australian soil, wooden items are always checked for pests and some of them have to be fumigated (which is quite an expensive process) before they can be returned to their owners and definitely NO SOIL can be carried  into the country. This last bit is the major concern with imported vehicles. So my Kawa had to be checked for any soil trapped on it. If the bike was clean I would be OK to go, but I knew it was not…

Anyway, things worked out that way that my appointment would be the following day (today) at 10AM. I had to pay another 97 dollars for this appointment. As expected the quarantine officer requested the bike to be cleaned. Such cleaning can be carried out only by authorized companies with necessary catchment areas. That means another charge for cleaning (AUD60 per hour in my case) and for quarantine re-inspection. Great! L Well, here is one suggestion from me to people taking their used vehicles into Australia: have it cleaned before you send it! You save on the actual cleaning costs (I could have saved about 59 off the 60 dollars per hour that they charged me if I had it done in China), you definitely save on the re-inspection charge and you will not have your vehicle’s heat protection layer destroyed by a super heavy duty water pressure gun they normally use for cleaning heavy machinery like excavators and land movers. I have the heat layer protection under my fuel tank shielding it from the engine heat torn and parts completely blown off and it is the same story with my side covers around the exhaust pipe.

Another problem was that the bike was have to be moved to these “cleaning” people and the people in whose warehouse my crate was had apparently no capacity to do that for me until late next week. This was unacceptable for me as we are flying to Europe next Wednesday. Under normal circumstances it would also not be possible for me to move it there by myself due to the quarantine restrictions. Fortunately I managed to get the authorization from AQIS (Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service) to do that and fortunately I came there with a 4WD Toyota with a trailer to put the bike on. Before I could take the bike from the warehouse they slugged me for another 60 dollars for “allowing the AQIS officer into their warehouse”. Would you believe that?! Well, they do it because they just can… -  “We’ll hold your property until you pay us more…” “Sure, thank you sir…” :-( They want it cash so I had to go to find some ATM first. Things just can’t be too easy, can they…

It was after 1PM when I started to break the huge wooden crate that my Kawa was in. Just a few minutes later I got a call from those “cleaning” guys that they wanted to knock off at two. “Oh, I’ll be there”… I had to! Now it was a race. Not only I had to get the bike out and load it, but I also had to break the crate to manageable pieces so that I could take it with me too as I couldn’t leave it there.

I arrived to the company that agreed to clean the bike 1 minute before 2 o’clock, left the bike there and drove off to withdraw another cash for these guys. I have no money left so I had to do cash advances on my credit card, which I hate to and don’t normally do. When I came back the bike was already cleaned and my panniers opened with a crowbar (I forgot the keys so I did gave them permission to do that, only I thought they would wait for me) and apparently checked by “my” second quarantine officer of the day.

The water pressure gun was not only successful in removing my bike’s heat protection and parts of its decals but fortunately also in removing the dirt in all of its crevices so no re-inspection was necessary and I was finally free to reclaim my bike and take it home.

At home I dismanteled the bike to check everything, get necessary spare parts and repair what I can. Among other little things I found out that the people that were cleaning the bike with the huge water pressure gun that they normaly use to clean huge earth movers managed to blast off any heat protection under my tank and next to the exhaust pipe on the sides as well as get rid of the isolation on a few wires in the main bunch that is the spine of the electric system. Great work guys! :((

Lengthy again and this time even more expensive than air freight this sea shipment of my bike only proved that sending it by air is definitely a better option. If only the bloody bureaucratic Chinese let me do that… Well, hopefully next time. Till then bye and thanks for reading and “being with me”.