“Well, that’s inconvenient”. I’m trying to reconnect my fuel tank to the fuel pump but something seems missing. The quick release connection does no longer connect. Nor quick or slow. Looks like I messed something up, which does not come completely unexpected…
To get a vehicle into Australia it has to be thoroughly cleaned to avoid any flora or fauna contamination. As I’m putting my bike onto a boat to Darwin from Dili in East Timor, this is the place to do this extensive clean. It will be the first time I actually clean the bike since I left Dubai six months ago. The horror stories about vehicles being refused entry to Australia due to a blade of grass or a smudge of mud are all over the Internet. And Australia being full of red-tape loving public servants, I for once decide not to try and wing it but follow the rules to the letter.
A fellow biker has recommend a backpackers hostel where it’s allowed to take your bike apart and clean it. So that’s where I head. It’s a dump. Dirty beds, dirty showers, dirty bar. Everything dirty, including the shifty English owner who seems to spend his whole day playing world of Warcraft with his equally shifty expat friends. But it’s also dirt cheap (pun intended…) and I don’t think a real hotel would have allowed me to clean my bike on their grounds.
Every overland traveller I meet in Dili has different stories and tips with regards to how clean the bike should be, to pass the Australian quarantine inspectors. Some people cleaned the insides of their air filters; others took the wheels off to get to difficult to reach areas. Toothbrushes and steam cleaners were used. Some took 10 full days to clean their bikes and others outsourced the whole thing to local car cleaners for a small fortune. The panic and paranoia definitely clouded some peoples judgement.
I decide to take the middle way and only remove the plastic body panels so I can clean the engine. Water, a sponge and fairy liquid are my weapons of choice, combined with a can of WD40. I spent two leisurely days cleaning the bike and all my gear. I reckon I’ll be OK as long there’s no obvious dirt or plant matter on the bike.
During the clean, the owner of the backpacker hovel gets annoyed about the amount of water I’m using. “Well, what did you expect mate?” I ask, “that I would clean this machine with wet wipes?” He grumbles a bit more but gets back to his LAN party when I offer him 10 USD extra for my so-called excessive water use.
I remove the fuel tanks as well but forget that the left tank is attached to the fuel pump. The quick release connector snaps and doesn’t reconnect when I later try to install the tanks back on the bike. Without this connection there won’t flow any fuel from the tank to the engine so I can’t ride. With the help of a fairly mental (but really nice) Ukrainian bike rider, who’s staying at the same place, I construct a temporary connection with a piece of garden hose and two hose clamps. Who needs expensive original KTM parts when you have access to garden accessories and a kooky Ukrainian.
With the cleaning done, I ride to the shipping company to put my bike into a container. There’re three other bikes in there, including the BMW of my Ukrainian friend. Not surprisingly the other riders are concerned that my bike isn’t clean enough (they spent 10 days cleaning theirs). I dust off my bike a little more and apply WD40 in liberal doses and this seems to satisfy them.
On arrival in Darwin all the anxiety has been for nothing. My bike clears as fast as the one that had been fastidiously cleaned with toothbrushes and the souls of angel winged virgins. I later hear from Steven (of Perth to Perth fame: here you find his trip documentary: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/perthtoperth/92376060) that he just had his bike steam cleaned at the local car wash before shipping it from Singapore to Darwin and had no issues whatsoever.
With the quarantine inspection done I hop on the bike and start the engine. Which is not a success. There’s petrol streaming out from underneath the tank and not enough fuel gets to the engine to start it up. The garden hose fix hasn’t survived the overseas trip. The fuel has eaten through the plastic of the hose so I’m not riding into the Darwin sunset anytime soon. It’s another ride on a truck to the local KTM dealer…
short stories about a rather long trip 