Hi,

Some of you will have read that I was looking to buy a bike in Australia for this the final leg of my RTW.

After a week or so of looking I found an immaculate 2006 R1150GSA in Sydney. The price was high but the bike had only covered about 2,500km and had only seen rain once and so I went for it. My base was in Brisbane so we had to fly down and stay in a Motel for a few nights. Sorry I'm rambling a bit here. The main thing is we weren't aware that there is STAMP DUTY payable on vehicle purchases which is claimed when you register the bike in your own name. In New South Wales, it amounts to approx $AU 28 + 3% of the purchase price, which when the bike is $AU22,000 amounts to a lot of wonga. In Queensland it is around $AU250 + 2% of purchase price.

The bike also is required to be REGO'd which is the combination of Road Tax/licence and compulsory 3rd party inurance, this amounted to around $AU350 although in my case it was already paid for the next 8 months. As far as I make out this insurance only covers you for 3rd party people, not their vehicles so you still need to buy 'normal' insurance on top.

Please be careful when buying a vehicle down here-make sure you know all the costs or you will get the nasty shock as we did on the day we took delivery of the bike.

Regards,

Mike

P.S For those of you thinking you'll get round it by altering the purchase price, be very careful as if it is stolen you may only get what you claimed you paid for it. It is very different down here to the UK, there is a lot more trust involved all-round.