Shipments done by Travellers

I paid Dave in _cash_ with a "no receipt needed" for a one way trip from Melbourne to Christchurch. It included the NZ temporary registration, Warrant of Fitness (WOF), and a refundable AU$250 since it was cheaper than getting a carnet.

My bike is a 1965 Ducati 250cc, so it's light and small. Round trip for a normal sized bike is AU$1,350. So my one-way, minus the carnet fee, was AU$1,080 instead of the quoted AU$960. I should've done this myself and learned about bike shipping in 2 countries that both speak English and also saved some cash.

As he says on his site, "These prices include container lease, loading and unloading, sea freight both ways, transport from ship to storage area at each end, transport from storage area to ship at each end, the use of bike specific cradles and tiedowns, Customs and Quarantine clearance at both ends, secure storage of all bikes prior to your arrival, (it is simply not possible to have the container arrive the same day you arrive in New Zealand), agency fees, storage handling fees and wharf handling fees. Also included is your bikes NZ Temporary (Tourist) Registration and Warrant of Fitness".

The WOF shop was ran by a jerk who rode bikes even though he didn't have to. He just wanted to ride bikes he can't afford. I was there with several new(er) Ducatis. He almost dropped a Ducati ST2 and stalled it twice -- just in the parking lot. He quit riding the new bikes after that, but insisted on riding my bike. He couldn't start it, kept stalling it (I'd have to restart it for him), and couldn't change gears. I don't mind people riding my bike, but there's no way I would've willingly let this guy do it. Dave Milligan said it was the first and last time he'd use this WOF shop.

I'd say Get Routed would be a good way of shipping your bike if you're a part of the winery touring crowd which the other bikes shipped over were. Spending money isn't so bad on a regular vacation but when you're on a tiny budget it hurts -- especially when Dave tells you he's shipping race bikes to Isle of Man for free.

He let me bring in my bike on the last day since there were problems keeping it running which was nice.

We would recommend this company as we compared quite a lot of quotes and they were the cheapest and are reliable (two other travellers we know shipped their bikes with Sita from BKK to Bangladesh recently and they were happy too).

The quote from Sita was:
48 THB per kg (actual weight or volumetric weight – whichever is more)
4000 THB service charge
That’s it - no dangerous goods surcharge.

We had the necessary crate made by a carpenter who was organized by Sita. In Thailand we paid 3500 THB for the carpenter plus 22048 THB for Sita. It was more than we expectet and there were 2 reasons for that.

First, the carpenter made the crate bigger than we had ordered. It was already done when we came to deliver the bike, only one of the small sidewalls and the lid had to be attached. We had ordered it 75x200x115 cm and it came in 85x218x117. So at the end the volumetric weight (376 kg) was bigger than the actual weight (309 kg).

Second, Joy calculated the volumetric weight different from what she had explained before. The 3 measurements will be multiplicated and then divided by
a factor which supposed to be 6000 and then was around 5800. We asked her why and she said something had changed and we could check with the airline. It was
not a big difference but it felt a bit strange.

Compared to the other quotes we got, Sita was still the cheapest. And we delivered the bike to the airport in time and the boys did all the paperwork
for us within 1 hour. So we shouldn't complain too much.

Maybe it's worth to find a carpenter by yourself and advise and watch him what he is doing while he is making the crate. The carpenters mistake cost us about
3200 THB and we were charged more again in Delhi for the warehouse.

In Delhi it took us only one day to get the bike cleared. We didn’t use an agent and there was not a trace of corruption. We had to pay 11 USD (551 INR) to the airline and 76 USD (3355 INR) (regarding to vol.-weight) to the airport warehouse. We got proper receipts for that.

we used this agent in port klang to receive our bikes from india and were so impressed by their service and friendliness we used them again to ship to sydney.

we shipped 2 bikes uncrated as part of an LCL shipment. plus a wooden box of 1 M cubed. total was 4.8 M cubed. the $US 340 was for everything including fumigation. all we had to do was drive the bikes to the wharehouse to a chap called "Balan". both Amin and Balan speak passable english, and both very friendly.

Amin issued us with a Bill of Lading even though the ship had not departed, as we were due to fly to australia. we left our bikes for Balan to roll them into the container and secure them for the crossing.

when received in sydney they were as we had left them. a totally satisfactory service, we would recommend them. if you require crating they have a carpenter for a fee.

Just to let you know that we have made it across from
Djibouti to Yemen.

We crossed into Djibouti and rode about 10km and then
camped in the Desert. The next morning we went to Djibouti City and went straight to the harbour. At the security check point we explained that we need to speak to the Harbour Master / Port Captain as we needed info on a ferry or cargo boat going to Yemen. They were very helpful and directed us to the second in-charge (Captain Tourki) at the Port Captain's Office. We were told that about 3 or 4 cargo boats leave every day for Yemen to either the port of Aden or Al Mukha. They spoke to one of the cargo boat captains and within 4 hours we were loaded on board and ready to sail (with 2800 sheep) to Port Al Mukha
in Yemen. The trip took 16 hours (over night 15h30 - 07h30) and can cost you anything between US$100 to US$200. We paid US$100 for 2 people and one motorbike.

Yemen is very beautiful and the people are very friendly.