An Australian volunteer who was doing whatever volunteers do in PNG.
I was there for 2 years until Dec 2005 .. I hope I made the most of it.

Saturday, November 26, 2005

The Shipping News



Time to crate up my shite. Books, DVDs, clothes, camping equipment, bush knife, letters, cards and two halves of a bloody heavy giant clam shell.

I got a couple of plywood boxes made especially to hold the shells I brought back from Manus. If I loaded them and the rest of the stuff into cardboard boxes, it would fall out the bottom. Unfortunately I told them not to bother with handles. I will now have to get them to stick some on.

The next problem is how to get them back. My next-door neighbour who has just gone pinis, had half a dozen boxes totalling 160 kilos and he told me after ringing around, he eventually had to get them posted back - air mail. Can you imagine being in a post office for three hours with the clerk sticking on 2,000 kina worth of stamps onto your packages. Well this is what he went through.

Fortunately I have access to a car and yesterday I went around town and visited a couple of spots to find out the story with shipping this stuff back. Luckily there is a guy in town who does it, part of a removalist mod, and they measure by volume not weight and send by ship. Exactly what I want.

I think he is used to dealing with large volumes though and not under a cubic metre like I have. I am waiting for a quote.