“Nah sorry mate. Your bike failed quarantine. We found some grass on it,” said the officer at the Melbourne shipping depot. Failing quarantine is like failing a roadworthy at a remote garage thousands of kays away from home. It means the inspection officer found some dirt, you’re going to have to pay through the nose for them to re-clean and re-inspect it and who knows when they’ll do it… “Nah, There was no way they found a morsel of dirt on our bike after we spent Christmas Eve at a carwash in Bali (AMCN Vol 72 No 25) with three people cleaning it four times over with acid-dripping toothbrushes.
“No chance. Our Yamaha is immaculate… ”
“Oh!” he interrupted. “Yours is the Yammy? Yeah, no worries, she’s a beaut.”
We were finally reunited with our bike after the XT spent months at sea being shipped from Indonesia. A fellow traveller at the depot wasn’t so lucky. He had to wait four weeks for a re-inspection.
