Shipping
October - November 2007, South Africa - UK	previous entry next entry

What we imagined was going to be a nightmare, turned out to be a fairly painless procedure. Two weeks before we were due to ship, we visited Faldelah at ASR Freight in Paarden Eiland in Cape Town. She arranged everything for us. All we needed to do was show up with the car, produce the carnet and pay the bill. We did have to pay for a few days storage (€1 a day!) as we packed the 20ft container on the Thursday (as we were flying back to UK next day) and the ship was only leaving on the Monday. We packed the car as best we could (wedding presents included), lowered the tyre pressure and squeezed Dino in. The carnet was stamped, we locked the door with the special seal and waved goodbye. Easy as pie. (However, customs did search our car and made us open the odd box.)

We can highly recommend Faldelah and ASR Freight. She was unbelievably friendly, efficient and organised. The total bill on the South African side for shipping (incl. Strapping and lashing) was about €2700.

The ship was due to take 17 days but in fact arrived much earlier, about 12 days actually. We received an arrivals notice in the post and contacted customs at Hapag-Lloyd. We were given the services of an co-ordinating agent, Kumar, who organised everything for us. All we had to was fax a bit of paperwork, pay up front and turn up at the logistics company office in Felixtowe to pick up Dino. The total cost on the UK side for clearing customs was around €600.

Dino fired up first time but alas, the leaking clutch issue was still a problem, which meant he had to be towed out of the container by, wait for it….a fork-lift! Gutted! Rob the amazing, spent about 10 minutes topping up the clutch fluid and we were off.

Here are all the important bits:

SHIPPING AGENT IN SOUTH AFRICA (CAPE TOWN)

ASR Freight
Contact: Faldelah Sumsodien
11-12 Block A Island Centre
Cumberland Road
Paarden Eiland 7401
Cape Town
South Africa
Tel: +27 21 5100306
Fax: +27 21 5105513
Mobile: +27 834786795

SHIPPING AGENT IN UK (FELIXSTOWE)

Hapag-Lloyd (UK) Ltd
Contact: Kumar Janagman Forwading Co-ordinator-Imports
Roding House
2 Cambridge Road
Barking
Essex
IG11 8NL
UK
Tel: +44 208 5076033
Fax: +44 208 5074193

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