I got my bike out of customs!
So I’m officially in Australia now! 🙂

The famous and very strict quarantine inspection was not that bad in the end. She didn’t check everything, just wanted to see some specific things of the luggage. Mainly camping gear like tent, sleeping bag, boots and camping chair.  But she did look into all of my panniers to see if there’s any soil or sand in there. She saw that I cleaned them thorougly.

The bike itself got a deeper inspection, with a flashlight and tweezers. She was looking for sand, soil and plant residues in the motor area, down at the center stand and between the motor and rear wheel. There she found some dirt! But said it’s not much and cleaned it right away with a small brush.
The only thing I needed to take off was the seat and there she also checked my first aid kit.
She said that’s the cleanest bike she had seen in a long time! 🙂

So the horror stories about the inspection where they check the exhaust pipes and air filters seem to be exaggerated.
Which doesn’t mean you don’t need to clean it very good! I guess if it looks not good enough on the first sight, they will check deeper…

I cleaned my bike for three days! but I didn’t took off the wheels or the tank (like some others did). But I degreased almost everything (breaks, chain, sprockets…), which I guess helped a lot. And I told her right away that I took off and cleaned under all the pastic covers, the air filters and so on.

The whole process of getting my bike out of customs costed me about 1600AUD (1200CHF)!