Bye Bye Tiger
It is entirely possible to fly to just about anywhere in the world, hire a motorcycle, and have a fabulous time exploring new horizons. This is perfectly fine if you are prepared to put up with the vagaries of a bike which has almost certainly been treated with a total lack of respect by a succession of renters over a long and undistinguished career. It might even be economically viable if you are going for a short period of time or you just want a scooter to zip about the city. These can be had for as little as $20 AUD/day but a larger BMW, Harley or Triumph for example can be as much as $250+/day, then add in fuel, insurance tires etc and a 100 day, 25,000km journey such as ours…well you do the sums!
This is where it becomes obvious we should be taking our own bike. We know it and we trust it to take us where we need to go. But how do you navigate the complex world of shipping, importing/exporting, customs and all the other complications this brings? Simple really, you get Bikes Abroad to do it for you and through their affiliation with Compass Expeditions the process could not be simpler.
Firstly, Carolynn from Tasmanian Motorcycle Transport collected our Triumph Tiger from our home then she spirited it off to Melbourne for a very reasonable fee, certainly cheaper than we could have done it ourselves.
Then it was carefully loaded into a shipping container along with several other bikes belonging to the Aussie contingent of our group and the support van. We are now told the container is sitting safely on the dock in Valparaiso awaiting our arrival.
Yes Compass Expeditions do things right. They are not the cheapest in the industry but they definitely don’t try to be. They are travel industry professionals who just so happen to be motorcycle enthusiasts, not as so many companies are, a couple of keen motorcyclists who thought they would have a crack at guiding tours.
It’s only a matter of days now before we arrive in Chile to start the mayhem! To say we are excited is about the biggest understatement imaginable. There will at times be happy moments and sad, exciting adventures and long tedious hours in the saddle, trepidation and expectation, fabulous scenery and lousy weather. In short the full range of experiences imaginable
You can subscribe to our blog via the button in the left sidebar and you will get notifications to your inbox. As we go along we will introduce you to the rest of the team, tell you a little about some of the places we visit and the people we meet. There will be some tales of the shenanigans we get up to and inevitably there will be some things that happen on the trail which will be best left on the trail!
We hope you enjoy reading our story.
