Riding overland to Australia and keeping bike in Oz?
 

Hey all, I plan to ride back to Australia from Britain, and want to keep the bike there once I get there. Has anyone done this before? It seems like with a CdP it won't be allowed to be imported...

You are correct, you will need a Carnet to import the bike into Australia, and Australia only allows temporary imports for tourist purposes, meaning, you won't be able to leave the motorcycle behind in Australia.

I've investigated the same question myself (thinking of taking my Canadian motorcycle to Australia and riding around there), and the conclusion I came to was that the whole exercise would be extraordinarily expensive... not only the shipping, but the cost of the carnet, which is staggering. Plus there are other small headaches in the way, such as the probable need to steam-clean the moto upon import due to very strict regulations Australia has to prevent accidental importation of non-native insect species.

If you want to pursue your research, first check out the cost of a carnet, because that will likely be sufficient to cause you to abandon the project.

Michael

PanEuropean is correct.

However, a couple of things to clarify
1: IF the bike is originally Australian, you enter WITHOUT the carnet. And no issue, it's home and fine.
2: If you're Australian, on your return home you MAY be able to import it without a carnet - but CHECK VERY CAREFULLY what the current regulations are. Again you do NOT use the carnet, but you DO pay a stack of taxes and duty to bring it in.

3: Steam cleaning - REQUIRED AND SUPER IMPORTANT - it's not done on IMPORT i.e. arrival in Australia, but BEFORE it ships to Australia. This isn't a ten minute squirt - this is a take fairings - plastic - panels etc off and spend the day cleaning to perfection. They will inspect it on arrival in Australia, and if it's not toothbrush spotless they'll instantly ship it right back where it came from, at your expense. I even heard that they'll look in the air cleaner if they're suspicious. They REALLY don't want your bugs washed into the country.

A very good point. When we shipped our vehicle (not bike) to Australia, we did a very thorough cleaning, We still expected, based on posts on various fora, that the chances of its being accepted were zero, however all of the information we saw was that the Dept of Agriculture would then do a fumigation/cleaning and bill us, i.e., not send the vehicle back. We saw posts from people saying that this cost them several hundred AUD.

To our surprise the vehicle was released 15 minutes after opening the container, and we were told that the DoA was happy with its condition. So, despite general opinion it is possible to pass the inspection.

Perhaps it's different with bikes and they do send them back if not accepted?