CDM

This question is similar to the one about bringing shells into the country. Only in my case, I have a collection of African wooden curios that we brought back to the UK with us form our backpack tour around Africa. In addition to the wooden curios (carvings of animals and the like), I also have some carved animal tusks and horns.

Has anyone had eny experience with bringing this sort of stuff into the country? We collected a keepsake from each country we travelled through so there's a lot of sentimental value to these things for us.

- CDM

Pollyana

Again you need to check out the AQIS site
http://www.daffa.gov.au/aqis/travel/...alia/cant-take
Tusks and horns will almost certainly be a no-no. The wood may get in but being from Africa they will want to inspect it and you may have to pay for treatment , per item.

lesleys

It cost us $100 per item for irradiation of items made from 'unsuitable' plant material, so beware. In our case the items were the straw stuffing in an old teddy bear and a decorated gourd turned into a vase.

CDM

Thanks for the link Pollyana but I've already been there. It states that you have to 'declare' the sort of items that I have in my collection (wooden curios, tusks & horns). It doesn't say whether these are allowed in and, if so, under what circumstances. It doesn't state anything definitive ... only that you 'may' have the items returned to you or there 'may' be costs associated with fumigation and the like. The last thing I want is to just decalre everything and simply 'hope for the best'.

My orginal post was to see if anyone had had any specific experience with going through the motions to declare and get these sorts of articals into the country when they emmigrated.

- CDM

Pollyana

In many cases you won't know until AQIS look at the items on arrival - sa you'll see from posts from other people, its not an exact science.

CDM

Has anyone had any experience talking to AQIS directly about this sort of thing? Are they approachable? I'm thinking of calling them next week to see if I can talk to a real person to see just what's what.

Their web-site is a little vague a lot of the time. Technically, most of our furniture and many of our regular house-hold knick-knacks are wooden so it's difficult to know where to draw the line at what needs to be declared or not.

For example, I have a pair of bookends that just happen to be made of wood. Do I need to specifically declare them individually? If so, I'd be declaring almost everything that we are bringing over. Most furniture is inherrently made of wood anyway.

When you fill up aq 20' container, I know you have to provide an inventory but is this the same as 'declaring' what you're bringing into the country? Or, do you have to specifically 'declare' those things that are more questionable?

- CDM

flodsfive

Your shipping company should give you a aqis form to fill in. Most wooden furniture, from memory goes under general factory made furniture or something like that. At least that's what my shipping company told me to tick and all ours came through without a hitch.

FYI-You can tell which box's they inspected because they use clear plastic tape to reseal. In our case it was half the kitchen boxes. No linen or toys or book boxes. furniture about half. Not the golf clubs which really surprised me. We took to antique long case clocks they inspected one not the other. so i guess it's pot luck.

Good luck

Pollyana

Quite a few people in the past on here have emailed AQIS and got good helpful answers, so I'd say its worth a go

Rudi

I spoke to them a while ago and found them really helpful! I was only moving from NSW to Brisbane and wanted to know whether I could bring my plants in pots with me. They spent ages on the phone (their phone call to me after I had left a message) checking out the specific plants on a list. So I reckon it's worth a try giving them a call.

Love

Rudi
x

louH

I've brought these kind of items into Oz (also from Africa - was a great trip )

I listed them clearly on my index - I listed every single item in the box with a brief description where appropriate.

I put the wooden items at the top of the boxes to ensure those inspecting did not need to go through everything to get to them.

Had no problems getting any of the items into Oz and paid no extra charges.

Good luck!