From Singapore, Singapore to Darwin, Australia - February, 2005

The most important thing is to get your bike and kit REALLY REALLY CLEAN. Jetwash your bike and boots (making sure you aim into any missable nooks and crannies behind footrests and things), use a scrubbing brush as well, then remove all gaffer tape, dead leaves from the bottom of your toolbox and panniers, sand from inside the ends of your tent poles, fit a new airfilter (unless you have a reusable one) - the Aussie quarantine guys are EXTREMELY fierce.

1. Ring Angie Ong - she'll get the papers ready.

2. Go to the Megastar office with your carnet and stuff - all the papers were ready, and I only spent about 10 minutes with Angie.

3. You get the PSA (Harbor) pass at the PSA building gate 1 (end of Cantonment Road at Keppel Road)

4. Ride to gate 3 (around 10 km west of gate 1). Customs is at the gate. Get the carnet stamped.

5. Go to building PT1 and ask for Mr. Sum (if Angie is not giving a different name).

6. Pass over the shipping documents and ride your bike into the container or just leave it in the warehouse (as I did). They prefer not too much fuel in the tank.

7. Go back to Megastar to pay them and get the Bill of Lading (extremely important document). I paid S$608 altogether.

Go to Darwin.

1. Contact Nandra Turton (nand...@perkins.com.au Tel: 8982 2000) or Dawn (8982 2018) to find out when the bike will be available for inspection.

2. Go to Customs (21 Lindsay Street) and get them to fill out a Quarantine Entry. They need the B/L documents and ask for carnet, vehicle registration documents and passport. They fax this to the Quarantine chaps (AQIS) and arrange the meeting with Quarantine at the docks. Costs: A$94 per appointment.

3. Go to Perkins (Francis Bay Drive) to meet Dawn and the Customs and AQIS chaps. You need to wear shoes/boots (not sandals), so don't pack them with the bike like I did (had to buy a cheap pair of shoes then give them away afterwards).

4. If your bike/gear doesn't pass the inspection, Perkins charge you 50A$ per hour to jetwash and do other cleaning for you. The second AQIS inspection costs A$80.

5. When you have the final YES from AQIS, go back to see Dawn and pay her (cost me A$61.45 plus the extra A$50 for cleaning) to get the pink release form. You can then get you bike and ride it away, dropping off your pass and orange waistcoat on the way out.

6. Ride to the Motor Vehicle Registry in Goyder Road at Stuart Highway. They check and register your bike. Sort of MOT test. Here I paid A$195 Ato get the 3 month mandatory third-party-compensation-contribution.

That's it. Now you can bugger off into the outback.