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Well, as you may have noticed, I haven’t been blogging much since I arrived here. I wrote up the trip and my arrival but nothing since then.

It’s been a busy three weeks. A definite flurry of getting reacquainted with friends I haven’t seen since last year. And there’s been a lot of tennis played as the weather, for the most part, has been excellent here.

But, I would say that preeminent thing that has preoccupied me since my arrival has been my motorcycle. I arrived on Tuesday, November 13th, here in New Zealand and my motorcycle was unpacked from its shipping container on Friday, November 23rd – about 10 days later. That’s not bad, considering there was a two week delay getting it aboard a ship in Los Angeles. The late Friday arrival however, meant I couldn’t begin my part of the activities until Monday the 26th.

Bringing a foreign vehicle into New Zealand is not for the faint hearted. Early Monday morning, I was on a bus headed out to near the Christchurch Airport to visit the NZ Biosecurity office there to process paperwork for my motorcycle and to arrange an inspection. Then, with papers from those folks in hand, I went over to the Customs House which is a mile up the road, quite close to the airport, proper. More papers were given and received there.

A lot of the paperwork shuffle was mysterious to me but I gathered that when the entire process was done, Customs would have been assured that Biosecurity had signed off and then customs would sign off as well.

By early afternoon Monday, I had a Biosecurity inspection scheduled at the Hilton Haulage Yard, where my motorcycle crate was, for 9 AM Tuesday morning.

Bright and early Tuesday, armed with all of the previous day’s papers and with a fully charged electric screwdriver for disassembling the crate, I arrived at the Hilton Haulage Yard and was issued with a bright orange vest and taken out to where my crate was. A very nice fellow from Biosecurity was already there looking at other imported goods and after a brief chat and a few photos of the crate prior to unpacking, he allowed as how I could disassemble it and then he’d do the Biosecurity inspection.

The crate was intact. It was sprung just a bit along one vertical seam but essentially, it weathered the trip well.

I employed the electric screwdriver and in about five minutes, we were ready to lift the crate’s top off the motorcycle and see how it had survived the trip. And … the answer was pretty well.

Several of the tie-down ropes had come loose so it was obvious that there had been some serious shaking at some point but with the wheel chocks and the crate so snug around the bike, it had apparently survived undamaged. That was the cause for some smiles.

The Biosecurity inspection was passed with no problems and this then had to be communicated back to the customs folks so they could sign off. Both customs and Biosecurity had to sign off before Hilton Haulage would allow me to remove my stuff from their premises. I called customs and he was working on my paperwork and asked that I come back out to the Customs House to sign more papers and to bring the Biosecurity clearance.

So, another bus ride from southeast Christchurch to downtown, a bus transfer and then out to northwest Christchurch where the Customs House is. I had to sign a paper at customs agreeing that if I sold the motorcycle within NZ for the next two years, I would owe NZ customs duty which had been waived as the machine was my personal property. Papers were shuffled, papers were given and papers were taken away and, at some point, I was back out the door, confused and with different and more papers than I’d had when I’d gone in. Then onto the bus again to return to Hilton Haulage to reassemble my motorcycle. The ladies there accepted all my paperwork and gave me a release to remove my stuff.

The reassembly went well. It took about an hour. In spite of the fact that I’d packed a small set of tools selected to aid in the reassembly, I’d still forgotten to pack a number 8 metric wrench so it was a bit of a tussle with my Leatherman all-purpose tool but, eventually, it was all together. During this, several of the guys that worked at Hilton dropped by to see the assembly and to visit. One of them, Dion Leen, was a motorcycle rider and after awhile, he told me about a fellow named Ian Templeton at “Just Bikes” down in New Brighton who is the guy to know if you need a good reliable motorcycle mechanic. That was a piece of good luck and I wrote the information down.

It was getting around to about 4 PM when I got everything assembled. During this time, the fellow, Trent, I’d sold my motorcycle crate to on TradeMe (New Zealand’s equivalent to EBay in the US), had come by to collect the crate which I’d disassembled for him into all flat pieces. Trent was quite nice and gave me a ride to a local gas station and back so I could fill my small gasoline container (shipped for just this purpose) with fuel so I could put it in the motorcycle which had been drained for shipping.

Finally the moment came. Had I connected the battery right, was the battery charged, had I jiggled the wrong wires, had I blown any fuses, had I connected the fuel lines correctly. Do you think I was worried about any of these things? Naw!!! I turned the key and cranked it with three of Hilton’s finest standing as witnesses.

And it cranked, and it cranked, and it cranked. I knew it’s a hard-starter after being off for a few weeks. And, I’d had to re-add the gasoline as well. But, I was beginning to wonder if it would catch before the battery expired. Finally, it coughed. Then it ran a few licks twice. And, then it caught and ran. Hoo Ya! I’ve got to tell you, the alternatives were not pretty.

I had a lot of stuff to carry. Sharon’s helmet, a box of books we’d shipped in the crate, the little gas container and my bag with all my papers. The luggage compartment was already full with rags, ropes, tools and manuals. So, after a lot of strapping down and checking, I put on my coat and helmet and waved a goodbye to Dion and the other guys there and took off for my first motorcycle ride on the other side of the highway from what I’ve always known.

And, it wasn’t bad. When you drive a right-hand drive car, it seems very weird because everything in the car is reversed as well as everything outside. And, you have to keep very clear about the fact that NOW, most of the car is to your left so you don’t sideswipe vehicles, bicycles or people as you drive. With a motorcycle, much of this goes away. The motorcycle, itself, is the same as you’ve only known so all you have to deal with is the fact that you are on the other side of the road and that’s really not much of a problem.

The truth was, I was a lot more worried as I began my ride home in a light rain, that I wasn’t legal to be on the New Zealand roads. You see, I’d been through Biosecurity and Customs but I hadn’t yet dealt with New Zealand Land Transport. Those are the folks that issue license plates,isues registrations and verify the road-worthiness of all vehicles here in New Zealand. So, riding down the road with Washington State license plates on the back, I felt like a big target that was flashing, “Here I am, illegal as hell, riding down your highways – come and get me.”

But, the trip went well and in 20 minutes, I pulled into the garage space under our building and two days of fun were done.

But, there was more, much more, fun to be had in the near future.

Prior to my departure from the U.S., there were rumblings that my motorcycle title had been mislaid by the shipping company. I’d had to FedX my original ownership title to Global Transport in Seattle, the company I’d contracted with to do the shipping. They, in turn, had sent it down to Los Angeles where Conterm, who Global had contracted with, would show it to U.S. Customs who needed to see it before they’d allow the motorcycle to be shipped out of the country. Apparently, it made it to U.S. Customs and then back to Conterm. But, after that, the trail gets hazy.

At first there was a delay getting it back, and then there was a claim that it had been sent by mistake to the New Zealand associates of Conterm and then, after I arrived here and continued to press them to find the lost title, it was finally admitted that it had, indeed, been put into the wrong DHL packet somehow and shipped off – and now no one could find it.

Well, this has turned out to be a enormous problem for me. New Zealand Land Transport absolutely will not allow a newly imported vehicle to be registered here unless they see the original title to prove that the importer owns the vehicle.

So, here I am, in New Zealand for three months with a motorcycle I’ve shipped half way around the world and I cannot legally drive it here until I come up with a title. The U.S. authorities in Washington State where we’ve applied for a duplicate title, estimate six to eight weeks. New Zealand Land Transport, where I’ve applied to to allow me to circumvent this problem on this end, say nothing can be done in less than four to six weeks.

Just today, Conterm, who has admitted in an E-mail to losing the document and with whom I’ve been going back and forth for over a week regarding compensation for my losses here, have finally allowed as how they will pay my expenses – wait for it… – up to $300 US. Whooo-ee. Now that’s a generous deal. Just today, I paid $60 NZ to get a paper notarized here as part of sorting this mess out.

I’d asked then to consider reimbursing me for what it would cost me to rent a motorcycle or a car here for the period I cannot ride the motorcycle and this was their response. Motorcycles rent for no less than $150 NZ per day here. Cars can, perhaps be found for $25 to $50 per day. Meanwhile, I am sitting here with a machine I cannot use while my three months in NZ are ticking away. NOT GOOD.

$1500 US to ship it. Many hours to make the crate. Tons of planning and now I have a 450 pound steel and aluminum nick-nack in my garage here and no transport. And Conterm in a Multinational Corporation – and they can offer me $300 US. Amazing. I am wondering what my options here are.

This entry was posted on Monday, December 3rd, 2007 at 17:28 and is filed under New Zealand, Personal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.