karenvirginia

well, it seems like a very long time since we saw our belongings and its like christmas and birthdays all rolled into one now we are unpacking!
we used robinsons (near redditch) to ship our stuff from birmingham to the gold coast, it left our house on august 15th and we received it yesterday oct 31st - so just about 10 weeks.
i asked alot of questions when we packed (thanks mr mover!) took on board all the advice, everything thoroughly cleaned with jeyes fluid etc., discarded dodgy xmas decs etc. alot of stuff was brand new, tools, dvd, video etc. so we half expected a pull ref tax due - bit of a mystery that one, we had no receipts anyway. the lads who packed were fantastic, they were very thorough, and quick. we ended up with 150 boxes/packages from our two bed bungalow - only two of us. i actually did a bit of filming that day of our house and road and the way the place looked full of boxes which is great to watch now. off it went, we left five weeks later and have had a great journey via las vegas and staying in sydney with my brother, picking up our new ute from mazda and then driving up here. we had accommodation booked until 18th october and i figured our stuff would arrive shortly after. as it happened, the ship docked on 10th oct (fri) and was scheduled to be checked by aqis/customs on the following thurs then delivery would be arranged.
we were lucky enough to be renting from a very nice girl who let us use a fridge feezer, tv, sofa, table and chairs and microwave till our stuff arrived. we had brought a new bed up from sydney on the back of the ute and a computer desk which my brother was getting rid of. so had a fair few things to buy to get us going but its stuff we will use anyway.
it is very easy this end to talk to the shipping agent - in our case "overseas packers and shippers" in brisbane, they were always very helpful. we had a phone call to say everything is ready for delivery on the friday after we had paid local charges which we transferred online direct into their account. the charges were $275 inspection fee and $403 haulage because we are more than 30 miles from brisbane, within 30 would be included. it is based on your total cu mtr-in our case 28 i think, times 15$. well, that went through and on tuesday we were told delivery would be friday. the office rang first thing to say their lads would be with us in an hour then the lads themselves rang to say they are on the way! they were brilliant, i sat on a chair with the inventory and as the packages came off i marked it off while hubby alan was cutting off the paper from the wrapped goods and ben and damien (the packers) put the stuff in whatever room i said or was labelled. they even refused a drink until everything was off the truck - about an hour and a half. then all the paper wrapped goods were undone and they took all the paper away, the pile reached the roof of our duplex (bungalow) strangely enough, 150 items were sent from birmingham and we received 153! anyway, NOT ONE THING WAS DAMAGED OR MISSING! total time 3 hours.
after reading some nightmare stories on here we realise we have been very fortunate. certainly, some things had been looked at, you could see some new tape on top, golf clubs, a few tool boxes and even a linen box.
we are now unpacking our own boxes and have amassed an enormous amount of thin packing paper and are keeping that and the boxes flat packed as we may be on the move again within the year.
it is wonderful having our stuff back, by the way our tv is working brilliantly without any adapting, not tried the videos yet, apparently they may be a problem.
just wanted to praise our shippers both ends and let you all know that it can go smoothly.

yafm

Fantastic news well done you and your shippers - we start on Tuesday but of course I am doing the mad monkey bit clearing drawers and refilling those we are taking with other stuff - soft - Just remembers 20 pairs of shoes not diety but must be washed.
Glad to hear you enjoyed Las Vegas we should arrive there on 14th November Please advise what things did you see/do did you do the Grand Canyon trip and if so with whom - the prices dffer from $140 to $460 each plus tax


Enjoy your new duplex and look forward to yur advices

Pollyana

Glad your stuff got there OK, gives me hope for mine! My last day in the UK was spent at the shippers using colourful language to ask why they had my boxes for 2 weeks and had done NOTHING! Not even wrapped the couple of items of furniture! She then said "well we've got ages till you leave", and went pale when I waved all the paperwork with my departure date clearly on it! That caused a small ruction between the staff, and I told her I'll be ringing from Brissie on Monday with a large impatient fiance as backup to find out the progress.....! Threats on having their name in lights on the internet seemed to have a scary effect too!
They did get the airfreight done as promised, the computer is sitting waiting for me, as are some jet-lagged teddy bears! My last box of freight is flying from Heathrow with Excess Baggage - oops, too much stuff to cram in at the last minute!

karenvirginia

hi colin & yvonne,
where can you start in las vegas? depends on where you stay and your budget i suppose. we did the canyon flight only for about an hour and a half in the air, cost us approx £45 each i think. it was wonderful, could not have had better views of the hoover dam and the canyon, you have a headset on giving a taped commentry because the engine noise is so great. it is funny, interspersed with elvis singing viva las vegas! there are lots of trips on offer some with stops or lunch with the indians etc. but we saw what we wanted.
in the daytimes we would walk up the strip, just stroll into anywhere, these hotels are immense, any one has so much to see. the stratosphere was probably one of the best, the two rides at the top are breathtaking! the scope and scale of the whole place is just amazing, they do everything so well, see the venetian and paris and caesers palace. we normally used our pool in the afternoon and had a kip, but even if you don't go out till 2am everything is open! the traffic starts about 5am with people off to work. its certainly a 24 hour city.
as for what to see and do in the evening, well, we are not gamblers but played the odd machine sometimes, and we are not one for theatre type shows so we gave things like seigfried and roy a miss (it was the following week roy had the unfortunate incident) but we loved the whole spectacle and saw the bellagio fountains, fireworks every night and one night a naughty hypnotist show which was hilarious, an elvis singer in a bar etc. etc.
so, whatever you want to do you can. it is very hot but there are no flies or mossies or midges, a very good point!
safe journey for you on the 10th.
karen

yafm

Thanks Karen Just a question did you make your own way to the helicopter flight or was it a plane? the trips advertised on the net offer pick up from hotel and back otherwise what were the costs to get to the airline place.?

karenvirginia

it included a coach pick up and drop off and our flight was in an 18 seater small plane, see attached.

yafm

You look as if yu were enjoying yourself Great news Perhaps we will ait until we get there and book it via the hotel rather than on the net now Yvonne

markeh

Hi karenvirginia,
glad to hear that everything turned up ok.

Do you have contact details for your shippers in the uk?

The grand canin trip looks good, I've only seen it a couple of tomes, but always from the southern rim. It's nice at dusk when the red light brings out the colours in it.

How is the weather?

Bye
Markeh

karenvirginia

hi markeh, robinsons phone no. 01527 830861, michele butler is girl in the office and carol came to our house initially to give access quantity and quote arrived few days later. we actually went to their premises afew weeks before we went to get some boxes and paper to start packing. all ok.
weather here on the gold coast, well, last week we had a few storms, the last one on sunday which brought the massive hail stones. the days since have been glorious, not a cloud in the sky and temps approx 25 to 29. we are on daylight saving as half mile below queensland border, and they are an hour behind us. its very wierd, have to check times of buses shows etc. whether or not on dst.
it gets dark about 7pm. where are you now and where are you headed?
karen

markeh

Hi karenvirginia,

I'm still in the UK at the moment, "sunny Birmingham" (wet & dark actually

I'm / we are waiting for the visa, only been waiting 4 months to date.

Eventually we hope to head towards Queensland like yourself, for the better climate, but who knows where we will end up.

Bye
Markeh