El Jeep-o for the Peep-le

"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date"

Long lost love.

On November 20th, 2011 my darling Jeep was packed up into a container in Atlanta and, alone, made the long journey to New Zealand. The journey was not without peril. As any lad with google knows, New Zealand is most unkind to importation of older vehicles. They have strict vehicle standards which must be met to allow one to drive on their roads. To give you an idea of what it took to get fair-Jeepo over here allow me to outline:

1. Cost to transport in container
2. Concession fees in L.A. and Auckland ports to remove Jeep from container and "inspect"
3. MAF (Ministry for Biosecurity protection) fees to fumigate Jeep to eliminate any critters
4. Jeep inspected at importers location and deemed rusty = charge to sandblast and paint underside of jeep
5. Jeep still rusty, one month of Panel Beater work to cut out rust, replace steal, and have an "Engineer" certify that it was done properly....this took 1.5 months....
6. Significant monies to repoint headlamps, new driver-side seatbelt, new front brakes, grind rotors, patch small chip in windscreen, etc.
7. Compliance fees. You MUST receive a compliance certificate before you may register your vehicle to drive on their roads. After compliance for general import health, a WOF (Warrant of Fitness) must be obtained. You must get a new WOF every 6 months to drive. Luckily you must comply only once. 
8. Rego fees which gets us, finally, the tags....

My precious Jeep entered the container Nov 20, 2011, allowed to drive in NZ April 20, 2012.

Absence does make the heart grow fonder...

Jeep was, of course, taken straight to Muriwai Beach

Never again....never.

All that trouble to allow to drive on the roads.....nah..

Li'l Ella missed it too.

Bottom line is DO NOT try to bring any car to this country. They have plenty of suitable off-road vehicles for you to choose from with air conditioning, navigation, and heated seats. Try to figure out how to get the doors off of your CR-V!

Unfortunately Jeep did not get to enjoy a brights Summer's day... this year....

Container Update...

Our ship has come in!

Lee has been tracking the progress of our vessel as it came back into GPS range in the waters around New Zealand and it was on schedule to arrive 16-Jan at around 8:30pm.  The excitement of actually getting our stuff is killing us!

itajai express at 4:00pm

I went today to take what we hope is the final paperwork to the NZ shipping company responsible for customs clearance and delivery to our new home.  Everything appears to be in order and we just have a few details to work out with the Jeep once it clears the MAF customs guys.  Our last steps... last 7-14 business days of glamping in Titirangi :)

We went downtown to watch our ship come in, have a little dinner, and celebrate the approaching end of our container's journey across the great Pacific.  The weather was gorgeous and we walked to the end of the Queen Pier to watch as the Itajai Express rounded the last corner by Devonport.  Hmmm... 8:30... where or where is our ship?  Oh well, time to catch a beer at Brew on Quay and refresh the GPS tracking on the iPhone every 60 seconds :)

walking down queen pier

the "cloud" event space on queen pier for rugby world cup 2011

itajai green indicator - slowly comin' in

9:30pm found us back at the end of the pier and... thar she blows!!  The Itajai is a HUGE ship and needs the help of several tug boats to maneuver into her slip at the port.  We watched until we couldn't keep warm anymore and headed home.  The ship is headed back out on Tuesday and our container (fingers crossed) has finally landed in Kiwiland!

itajai coming into port

tugboats changing ship's direction

HUGE ship - wonder which container is ours?