I arrived back in Australia on Tuesday 24th August, with the intention of booking the bike on a flight with QANTAS as soon as I could. I'd spoken to them the day before I left for England and the indications seemed good that it might only cost about $3500 to fly the bike and avoid all the hassle of putting it in a crate and shipping. Knowing it would be in the hold of the same airplane and that I might have it only a few hours after I landed was also appealing. A trip to the freight department on the Wednesday revealed the truth. No problem to fly it said the man as he got his tape measure out. “Don’t you use actual weight” I asked? “No” he replied “volumetric weight”. I let them go through the process knowing what the probable outcome would be (the 1200GS is not a small bike!!) “it will be $4700 without the top box” he said, and that was at cost!! It was clear flying the bike was not going to happen.
On the way home I called in to see my old mate Gerry Kerkvliet at DLR Freight in Tullamarine. He said that he would arrange the shipping ASAP to try to get it arriving in Buenos Aries on or around the 9th of September. He later that afternoon sent me an Email to say it would arrive on the 18th unless I could get it packed at the despatch yard the next day in which case it would arrive on the 11th!! Some quick phone calls and pr-packing spanner work on the bike saw us packed and ready to ship on the Thursday.
So that’s it, apart from packing and repacking to try to reduce the luggage to a minimum its Argentina here we come.
No comments:
Post a Comment