The Longest Friday

Wow,.. shipping is quite an ordeal! Who would have thought it take so much time, dough, and effort to get to Australia.  Well, probably everybody but me.  Even with good shipping agents on both sides of the ocean, it was a real struggle….and a learning process.  After two weeks of waiting around in Australia I was seriously wondering if my bike was getting parted out to the highest bidder in some Sao Paulo backstreet.

Much to my relief, the bike(my other half) is currently in Brisbane Australia at the local BMW shop. Between the BMW shop and my buddy’s garage, she’s getting full spa treatment before we take on the outback.

There’s a few bikers out there that read this blog, so I’ll go ahead and post the details of the shipment,..maybe you can make more informed decisions then I on your world tour.

I spent two weeks in Rio de Janeiro hunting down a shipping agent.  As I may have mentioned previously in the blog, quotes started at over 9,000usd from United -flying out of Rio.  The cheapest air freight  I found out of Rio was 6,000usd.  I also got a hold of the major Argentinian airline- Aerolineas Argentina,..they also quoted 6,000,..for flying out of Buenos Aires.  Finaly, an agent at Qantas airlines, told me to contact  B&M logistics in Buenos Aires.  These guys got me a reasonable quote of around 2,500usd from Argentina.  After a frustrating two weeks, I was thrilled to have this quote.   At whim I asked them if they had an office in Brazil- which they did!  I was fortunate to make contact with a certain Felipe Carneiro of BM Logistica of Sao Paulo who gave me a quote of 2000usd and stood by it to the end.

This guy is one of the few, if not the only guy who now knows how to ship a private bike out of Brazil at a good rate.  I highly recommend him.

FILIPE CARNEIRO
Account Executive
B&M LOGISTICA INT‘L
Santa Catarina / Parana / Sao Paulo – BRAZIL
Phone: +55 11 3589 9429

Nextel:   55*11*14913
Mobile +55 47 8804 5419

It took us about a week to get the bike to the loading dock with all approved paperwork.  Felipe went to great lengths to assist me, far more than I would expect from a shipping  agent.  He drove me to various Motorcycle stores to find a crate and then strapped the full size crate to the top of his compact car and drove it to the airport.

He accompanied me to a number of government agencies to get all the stamps and notarized copies.  I’d have been lost with out him and I’d have paid about 5 times as much in transport fees.

Naturally, you need a crate to ship your bike!  you can have the crate built and fumigated for about 500 or 600 realis (essentially 300$).  Ironicly, its not the bike that gets fumigated, it’s the wood of the crate.  You need that paperwork stating the wood was fumigated to ensure it is accepted by any 1^st world country.

The obvious solution was to go to BMW of Sao Paulo and beg for a crate.  Unlike most of the BMW shops I’d been to, both the one in Sao Paulo and the Rio had very little interest in BMW riders visiting from afar. I don’t know, maybe you’ve got to buy a bike from them, or maybe their just into polishing the pretty bikes instead of bashing them across the continents.  The lady at the reception desk actually asked me to repark my bike off to the side of the parking lot- so its rough unshiny appearance wouldn’t detract from all the pristine new bikes parked on display.  If I had a bike shop, the bike that had been proven would be the bike on display,..but that’s just me.   Its not cosmetic damage,…its  a tale recorded in hard won dents and scratches from remote and intriguing places.

At any rate I can’t complain, because they said they had a bike coming in that afternoon and that I could come pick up the crate.    As we ran other errands, it came across Felipe’s mind to check the Harly Davidson shop.  These guys were great! And they had about a twenty aluminum crates on hand.  For 25 bucks I scored a crate off them, and because it was aluminum I escaped the fumigation fee (150$).

We rushed off to the airport to pack up the bike and get it on the loading dock.  I had about 45 minutes to disassemble the bike, drain the gas, and package it up on the crate.  I rushed it and got the thing packed up,..but I didn’t have time to reclean the bike.  I’d spent about 5 hours cleaning the bike with a toothbrush(literally) while in Rio, in an attempt to escape quarantine fees in Australia,..however, it had rained a bit since I had cleaned it, leaving some residual dirt here and there on the bike.  I wiped down the bike best that I could, and crossed my fingers.

Strangely enough, the crated bike was placed among boxes of live penguins.  I cant explain it, but there were definitely a bunch of live penguins at the loading dock.  One of the curios little critters stuck his head out of his box and made eye contact with me. He was clearly as confused as I was.

Two days later I flew to Australia in order to get into country before my holiday work visa expired.  From this point, it was over 2 weeks of wondering what the hell the problem was.  The bike continued to sit at the airport. Over a week passed and Brazilian customs finally cleared it for export.  Then, some way or another, my bike was repeatedly bumped from one flight to another.  You can imagine my frustration in this.  I sent all sorts of nasty grams to Felipe, as if he was personally responsible for the Brazilian Bureaucracy.  (sorry Felipe)

It did in fact arrive in Australia…all in one piece,. no damage…nothing stolen.,.nothing parted out,..and without penguin shit on the crate.

Felipe hooked me up with an  AWESOME shipping agent in Brisbane-

Vanessa Richards
COMPLETE GLOBAL SOLUTIONS
Tel:  +617 3606 4000

Fax: +617 3606 4091
Email: vanessa@cgs.net.au
Web: www.cgs.net.au

Vanessa went to great lengths for me.  Her associates drove all the way out to my buddy’s place to pick up documents.  I was given rides into the airport.  She even went to the gas station in high heals and skirt to fill a gas can for my bike!  Working with Vanessa and her team was a great experience. I can’t recommend them enough for anyone importing to Australia.

Despite Vanessa’s best efforts to keep my costs down,..the Aussie government took a huge chunk of my budget.  The biggest fine coming from the Quarantine boys, who identified dirt residue between the bashplate and sump plate, as well as dirt on the tail pipe.  I explained that the dirt on the tailpipe was actually burned on, but I couldn’t make excuses for dirt residue under the sump plate.( the rain in Sao Paulo after I cleaned the bike) They got me!  This opened up a real financial nightmare!  Between Quarantine and airport fees, I was billed over $1,100 just to get my hands on the bike.

Gross Cost of get’n to Oz

Passenger flight (Qantas) $1400

Airfreight +handling $2,000

Import charges  $1,114

Total- $4,514

time costs follow for air freighting bike to Australia

planning, paperwork, customs, travel, quarantine=30days

I had initially thought(based on dated internet information) to make the transition for 3,000usd and lose about a week of touring.  It’s a learning process.  There’s not a lot of information on this sort of thing,..hopefully this blog will help some else make an informed decision.

So I spent a lot of time, energy and money, getting to Australia,..now I know why most world tourers from my end of the world…don’t go to Australia.  However, now that I’m here, I’m going to make sure I take advantage of as much of this great country as possible.  I’m hoping to be riding on Wednesday….due west for the outback!

here’s some photos I’ve taken so far,..and a few I’ve collected from friends

My buddy Ian took me for a tour of XXXX brewery..good times!