[Closed] Shipping stuff to NZ - bikes & kit

OK, from my post in the other one....

Have a look at something like transglobal, air freight is based on size & weight. Follow the link and pop some box sizes and weights in.

Sea takes forever and there are more fees than you want to bother with for small amounts.

Drop me a mail if you have any specific questions - most on here just repeat what they think they know

After we toured NZ we shipped our bikes & gear home with Seven Seas.

This work well on all fronts for me. Small admin charge for processing at customs was all we had.

As above, the downside is that the quoted delivery was 4 - 12 weeks. Depends how quick they fill the container, how quick it gets on a boat and what route the boat takes. Mine arrived in 3 weeks so I got lucky.

And the NZ environmental people are very picky, nice, but picky. We had to have our bike tyres, shoes and tent groundsheet sprayed before they would let us in, not sure how it works for freight but I'd expect to have your boxes opened and make sure everyting inside is squeeky clean!

Thanks guys.

mikew - we might have more questions once we've looked into it a little deeper but for now, thanks.

As per the other thread.... look at Crown. We re in exactly the same position (ie: relatively small amount of stuff) and they came out significantly cheaper than the likes of anglopacific etc, buy the time you had got them to be clear about what their total cost was

If NZ is similar to Oz - whatever it is, it's probably cheaper to bring it than buy it.

Clean everything twice.

Ring around everywhere to get quotes. Considering all the hassle and the extra cost of insuring self-packed stuff, there doesn't seem to be much point in self-packing imvho (and I'm a cheapskate).

Expect everything to take twice as long to ship over here as what they tell you.

We used John Masons when we emigrated. Had no problems with them.

We got quotes from Pearson, John Mason and another company. Ended up going with Pearson. Biggest mistake we ever made, our stuff is still sitting in the UK [b]THREE MONTHS[/b] after they collected it. Absolutely rude, unhelpful service once they got our money. They just blame the shipping company and say it's out of their hands. Hence we tell anyone who will listen to avoid Pearson like the plague.

John Mason are supposed to be good, wish we'd gone with them!

Some of the problems arise when you are a part load in a container as you have to wait until it is filled. However the quote should show a time frame based on current orders. We had 2 quotes from the same place 1st was 9-12 weeks, the later one was 12-18 due to there being less stuff to ship. It sat in the UK for 6 weeks before leaving.

We used UTS Bournes who were great throughout and took a lot of the stress out of it (except the bit where stuff is not there for a while bit strange paying loads of money for blokes to come and nick your stuff.)

Some top tips
Make sure you are ready when they came to pack they are fast
Keep wallet passport etc somewhere else on the day
Do all your paperwork on time
Pack a load of power boards and swap the plugs to get you going - still swapping plugs

I wasn't quite ready and ended up having to air freight a bunch of stuff that I missed.

It all arrived with only 2 breakages - 1 un replaceable unfortunately.

Hi Jon

Moved to CHCH a year ago. Shipped stuff with anglopacific who were good. It did take about 10 weeks but it seemed the most economical.
My top tips would be; Ship as much stuff as you can, particularly household.That sort of stuff is alot more expensive here than in the UK. thats kitchen stuff, bedding etc. we reckoned its even worth buying stuff in the UK and shipping it. Pack all your outdoor stuff in one box as it saves the MAF guys going through everything. get some of those vacuum pack bags for clothes as you pay for volume not weight. Keep an inventory and photograph any valuable items for insurance. Shipping a decent bike usually means an extra charge for a ply box. Wiggle deliver to NZ for free and you don't pay UK VAT, as long as you don't order goods over $400 you don't pay kiwi VAT either. Its 20 degrees here today and the daffs are in flower. Good luck

I've posted on the other thread too.

Just been for a road ride over to Governor's Bay. It is very important that you visit the 'chocolate shop' there when you get here. Very important indeed.

not trying to be funny but you can fly with a bike and still take enough stuff for traveling. i did just that to Queenstown 2 weeks ago. bike in its box, with associated tools etc, came to 22kg, so within the allowance for checked luggage. then i took a 25 litre bag as hand luggage, in that you can fit a weeks worth of clothes, washbag, towel, and laptop. everything you need and more for traveling in new zealand.

@anoriginalname, I think the OP wants to do some non-biking travel on his way to NZ, so won't need the bike until he gets there.

I'm currently sitting in my Lounge just waiting for Crown to turn up to take all my stuff to Oz!

I got quotes from about 10 companies when we were looking. They all appeared similar until you started really digging into them - there were loads of extra charges that they hadn't included in the "total" costs.

Some companies were appalling to even get a quote out of, some quotes were completely incomprehensible. We went for one in the end that included [u]everything[/u] which was only £50 more than the cheapest quote that we had received.... but it includes oompah loopahs coming to pack everything up!

@batfink - who was that who you went with?

@anoriginalname - yeah, we're hoping to break up the flight over with a month in SE Asia... if it looks like we'll have all our documents in time.

@mikeyp - big thanks. we'd been told to bring some kitchen stuff as it's expensive to buy... but was still going to err on the side of caution and not bring loads. I'll defintely bring some stuff now! Was going to bring at least one set of bedlinen but not the duvet. etc.

@mikwsmith - I hadn't realised that they'll have different sockets. I'll bring some 4-gang extensions and rewire the plug to make some adaptors I guess.

@doof doof - I'll avoid Pearson 🙂

Thanks very much all for your iuput!

I'll bring some 4-gang extensions and rewire the plug to make some adaptors I guess.

Yep, was fun with the Oz ones trying not to chop fingers off. About halfway there on the rewire. Do a few on wet evenings now. Most removable things were replaced but about half is still UK.

At least they have fuses in them

I have the suspicion that if you're doing less than a container load (LCL), all the estimates of all the companies are all rubbish - they take your stuff and just wait until they can fill a container with someone else's stuff. If that shows up the next day, great - if it takes three weeks, well - you've already paid for most of it.

was fun with the Oz ones trying not to chop fingers off. About halfway there on the rewire. Do a few on wet evenings now.

@batfink - who was that who you went with?

Crown Relocations. Arrived at 8.30am and were finished by 10am. Brought all the packing materials, took quite a bit of care (more than I was expecting!) packing it all up.

We were 10 cubic feet over what we had randomly guessed 5 months ago - phoned though to HQ: "no extra charge sir".

Bonzer