April 13 2013

Melbourne

Following The Great game rally in 2011 which ended with our Morgan, "The Puce Goose" languishing within a crate in a truckers yard in China, we bring the story up to date. 

 

When we returned home in October 2011, we spent 4 months trying to get the Goose moved from Kashgar to Shanghai.  Our government spoke to the Chinese government, with little result.  Finally when we had decided to take a chance and tell the trucker to transport the crate ( and car ) to Shanghai, it was suddenly Chinese new year, ands all long distance transport stopped for 4 weeks.   

 

However, in the meantime, the agent in China who was waiting to get his $45,000 bond back, ( needing our car to leave China )  decided that the permit for the car COULD in fact be altered to allow it to be transported by a normal truck, and not the customs bonded truck where the cheapest quote was $20,000.   Bear in mind that we had already handed over $2,500 to the original trucker in Kashgar, and were loathe for fork out another $20,000. 

 

So, finally the crate and car arrived in Shanghai, and after more difficulties with customs, we located an agent who said that he could organise shipping for us. 

 

Laurette and I quickly obtained Visa's and flew to Shanghai in July 2012.  Tony, our new agent, collected us from our hotel, and took us to the yard where the crate as being stored.   Not knowing what might have happened in the 9 months the crate had sat in Kashgar, or on the 4 week trip across China, we were relieved to see that it was exactly as we left it, apart from lots of dust and some small paw prints over the bonnet and the windscreen.  We un-crated and fork lifted her around to a wash bay, and then lashed her down in a container, closed the door and headed off to spend the remaining few days seeing the sights of Shanghai.

 

 

 

The container arrived in September 2012, and after some unpleasant dealings with the local shipping agent used by the Chinese agent here in Melbourne, The Puce Goose arrived home on 19 September 2012, 4 days short of one year after entering China.

 

The rebuild.