by Carolin
Shipping a vehicle is trickier than you would think. First of all the choice of the port of arrival is definitely something worth looking into. Then of course you need somebody trustworthy to organize the shipping for you and tell you what to do. Counting backwards and knowing the container will be on its way for about 40 to 50 days we started to talk to shipping agencies approximately four months before the trip. Due to seasonal considerations we picked Darwin as our starting point, which is also known as being one of the toughest ports to get your vehicle into Australia.
Tough because the strictness of Australias quarantine laws are second to none.
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After having everything sorted out with our German shipping agent and ahead of loading the container we spent almost ten days straight cleaning Casimir from top to bottom (including laying underneath with tooth brushes in our hands covered in grease and dirt). It is especially fun, when you think you‘re almost done and then pull a dead maggot out of a small corner in the engine bay or find a net of 30 baby spiders in a mount of the underbody protection two days before the shipping. Keep in mind: if any kind of dirt, leaves or dead insects were to be found, it could result in a very expensive cleaning process at the destination in Australia plus a costly reinspection or, worst case, the vehicle could be sent back to the port of origin. To make a good first impression though we allowed ourselves to hire a detailing company to work on the paint.
All in all the time we spent cleaning the car mostly ourselves was absolutely worth it. You can also hire a company to do the full job but we heard stories about them not doing it right and still having to go through a re-inspection. Doing it our way we saved a fortune and knew we did our best, which gave us peace of mind. Nevertheless in the days ahead of the release of the container in Darwin we were getting very nervous but in the end the car was marked as “spotless” by the quarantine officers.
Once your vehicle is loaded, your job is done... time to visit the vessel tracker websites and to get the occasional panic attack about something happening to the container, e. g. falling off the vessel.
Despite the cleaning, another essential was a good customs agent in Australia. Not only did we have a good one... with Emilio from Universal Customs Brokers we had a great one. He arranged everything at the port, answered our many, many questions (without getting annoyed) and was simply a huge help throughout the whole process of getting the car out of the port, through customs, the quarantine inspection and the roadworthiness test (which was a bit of a joke).
We settled down in Darwin for a couple of days, got used to the climate and taste of Australian beer, went to the cinema and shopping and waited for Emilios call with the news to get Casimir out of the port. Having Casimir back after those 50 days was a great relieve and we couldn't wait to hit the road.
Mission accomplished. He would never be that clean again.