Shipments done by Travellers

We shipped one Africa Twin in a wooden box from about 2,836 qm and a weight from 300kg.

Vanessa Brown (Network Freight) in Auckland is absolutely perfect!!!! Extremely helpful, she knows everything, her Organization is simply stunning.

So in Auckland everything is fine, but not in Sydney....

The "Sister-Company" there is Hemisphere Freight Services.
DON'T GO TO THEM!!!!!
The Organization is medium, the Service is okay but not better than average.

But,.... they tried to make some extra-money with us. When it was the time for getting the bike, they gave us a bill about 800 AUS$!!!! 100 Bucks more than for the whole shipping from NZ to AUS....
After we spoken with Vanessa in Auckland they reduce the bill to a normal, average price from about 388 AUS$.

I think this is really a bad habit!

TIPP: Contact Vanessa and look with her for another Service Company in Sydney.
Or even look for another destination in AUS. The industrial harbour in Sydney is the most busy all over the world and you often have to wait a long time for your goods. Better choose Melbourne, Brisbane or Adelaide. Perth should be a good spot as well.

The passenger ferries only run from Limassol
to Egypt,The Greek Islands & Israel
from April,so we had to take a freighter.
Expensive.......but we could'nt afford the wait!!
Immagration was no problem,paid the 11Cyp.pound
port tax then went to see Head of Customs..
Nice chat with him for 5 min."Hope you had a
pleasant stay in Cyprus,please come again"!
Down to the freighter to embark,one more Customs
man wanted to know everything and see paperwork...
..."you have problem,illegally entered the country"
(Through occupied territory)Says he!!But one phone call to "Head"...
"Ok,sorry for the miss-understanding"..Bon voyage

On the freighter,i lashed the bike my-self.
The crossing took 13 hours,food wasnt that special,
even the crew left it!!
Docked in Haifa 07.00...waited two hours for security police,then immigration's 1000questions,then 500more
of the SAME questions!!
Rode off at noon,to yet another inspection,no problem
5min.later and customs.As friendly as they come!!
Half an hour later,temporary import document in hand..... Israel.

not too much changes from the information that already are on HU.
prices for 2005:
30R(~5US$) per kg for sending it to Frankfurt;
35R(~6US$) per kg for sending it to Warsaw;

for the 150kg yamaha TTR the total cost for sending it to warsaw was 6000R (~1000US$);

the custums are open till 16.00. there is only one guy there who knows whats a carnet; we have arrived to SAA cargo around 12.00 and recieved the last stamp from custom just when they were closing, so dont be later;

when we have send the bikes somebody told us that now the best prices for cargo are in KLM, but I did not chceck this, so dont know whats the difference;

all this was much easier then sending my transalp from Dakar to Warsaw 5 years ago;

the rate US$ to Rand is not so good now (1$ = 6R), thats why it was bit more expensive then I thought it will be;

It was a sudden decision to leave India, because a second Taifoon abroached over the Gulf of Bengal.

I found the contact-address via horizons.., it was just
a short phonecall, shortly afterwards I met Mr. Kumar,
who showed to be very experienced in this sort of trans-
portations. We decided, which vessel should be ordered,
the next day I met him again to exchange the documents
(copy of passport, carnet de passage etc.) and to pay
the fee for all costs (packing, customs, transport etc.).

After this was done, two members of his staff entered
the office, they talked and translated me, that expect-
ing this taifoon, it might better to take an earlier
ship, because otherwise it surely might give delays.
I degreed and even that it was a faster ship they did
not charge any higher transportation fee than I already
had paid.

Within af few hours they picked me up at the hotel,we
went to the harbour and the motorbyke was packed,
accepted by the customs and sent away.

During the transportation on sea there was an delay
of two days, due to the bad wheather, but this was
of course not the responsibility of the agency!

The motorbike arrived in best conditions in Klang,
but due to holidays it took almost 10 days to get
it out of the customs, without any problems.

3 months before the shipment, we called Lan Chile, and the told us it was ok, for arround 1000USD and we just have to phone them 10 days before. (It was not so easy to get the info, since we had to call 3 times before getting the right person).

10 days before the shipment, we called them, and they told us we abslolutely needed to go through an Agent (they proposed us Panalpina). We then made the request to Panalpina, who by mail gave us the price of 6700 USD ! for the shipment (LanChile part), plus 160 for them. This was 4 days before our plane...

The reason for the price was that the plane was now full (too close to Chrismass), and so LanChile would have to remove things from the plane to put our bikes. They confirmed it would be cheapper in October or late Jan.

After lots of talks in spanish, with Lan and Panalpina the price went down to 2000USD, with the bike going one day after (12 Dec).

The 10th Dec, one day before our own departure, we went to the airport to pack the bikes. They started to pack them separately, so I asked why, and if I had to remove the front weel to save volume. A guys from the Agent told me 'It s not needed, the price is on the weigth'.

Then, back in the Agent office, it turned up that we had LOT of volume (eq. 900kg) and that Lan will charge on volume. The price was then approx 4000 USD.

With LOT of persuasion, we made then to retreive the bikes, to unpack them, and I asked to repack them together, side by side. We finally did this our self (with some help of the blue collars of Lan), and I unmounted the front weels. The volume was now eq to 400kg, and the price went down to 2000USD. They all where very reluctant to do this, and the Lan Security officer only validate my 'packing method' 5 hours before our own flight.
I can tell you all this was quite stressful.

The bikes were finally 10 days late in Auckland. They told the bikes missed the plane because they had to remake the papers after of the repacking.

Note, in Auckland, we also lost 10 more for the MAF thing. (see http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/ubb/Forum31/HTML/000136.html).

Picts of the bikes packed one by one, then two togethers :

http://www.petiteviree.com/images/chili2/index.php?def_image=7