Hi,
I live in Wales, the old one, on the west side of England. My wife and I have done a few international expeditions in Europe and USA in the last ten years but now I'm seriously thinking about an expedition in Australia before my Jeep gets too old for the task.
My wife has rellies in Townsville, Queensland and we have been thinking about flying over for a visit for a while. I would really like to ship my RHD XJ over first so it's waiting for us when we arrive. Hopefully we could join a local club's expedition (or two) somewhere as well as doing some touring ourselves.
I don't know what year we would do this trip. It takes a lot of planning and longer to get the cash together but I would probably try and find some other Brit to join us to lower the per vehicle freight costs. Sometimes local laws and insurance screws up the best international expedition plans and it just doesn't happen. Anyway, I'm in the feasibility phase at the moment and in need of lots of local advice.
My first question:
Is Australia still bound to The 1949 Geneva Convention on Road Traffic or the 1968 Convention (amended in 2011)? The reason I ask is because my heavily modified XJ is still road legal in the UK, but probably not so in Australia. The treaty doesn't care about mods, the vehicle just has to be road legal in the country of registration to permit travel in the foreign countries.
I did have a few problems with law enforcement in some states in the USA that weren't aware of the treaty. In Philadelphia, the Jeep almost got impounded for multiple violations of local vehicle codes. Having a copy of the treaty with me and a statement from my US insurance company that the vehicle was covered in all states helped keep me on my way to Moab.
My Cherokee is a RHD 2001 60th Anniversary with 8" lift, rear coils and 35" tyres.
Some pics still on NAXJA...
http://www.naxja.org/forum/showthread.php?t=970709
Silver XJ with 'GB' sticker 'N4 XJA' registration.