Almost 1 year on we're now at the other end of this issue. Following the advice from our nice lady at the DVLA we exported the car; right or wrong, that's where we are.

The insurance problem didn't really bother us for the majority of the trip as we didn't spend that long in Europe and we were still insured from the UK up to Turkey (or so we thought, the "small print" comment is probably true). Once outside Europe, we figured that any insurance wouldn't be worth the paper it was written on and we would be much better off paying our way out of a situation. This in fact only happened once (in Pakistan) where we shelled out a grand total of 30 quid to a guy whose car we crumpled. This was obviously our call and a lot of people thought we were mad (scare stories about the cost of lorries in India and the like) but that was our decision.

We kept the V5C form so there was no problems with border crossings and the like - as it's perpetual there's no expiry date. We removed the tax disc from the car as soon as it expired.

Now we are in Australia and planning to stay here for at least a year, the situation has shifted slightly. There's no buying your way out of trouble here; medical bills and posh cars see to that. The laws vary from state to state, but in NSW the official line for temporarily imported vehicles (i.e. vehicles under a carnet) is that they are automatically covered for medical bills insurance - no extra policies need to be taken out. BUT this only applies if your vehicle is legally registered in its country of origin.. AH! So now we really are stuck in a catch 22 - we are cannot register the car here as we are under a carnet, but we are not registered at home as we were told to export.... so we are not insured and have no hope of getting any insurance.

I would love for someone to tell me that I'm completely wrong, but I think that might be wishful thinking!

I would also love to find out more about Paul's discussions with the DVLA to see if there's any way to retrospectively solve this problem; more wishful thinking?!

So Paul, if you're there, I know this is not your problem and really nothing to do with your job description, but any new info you have would be very gratefully received!!!

Jenny, aka Mrs. Deity

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Ollie

www.jollyfollies.com

Land's End to Sydney 2009