Well, the cats are sorted kind of. We decided to opt for a company called Airpets Oceanic based in Staines Middlesex.

We always knew sending our two cats to Australia wasn’t going to be cheap and the transport service provided by Airpets was pretty much what we expected.

Airpets will charge us £1469.00 to transport our two furry felines to Perth but within this cost they provide quite a good service.

To summarise, our £1469 will get us:

Freight (a spot in the plane)
I.A.T.A Air Travel Containers
Airline Handling Feeds
Delivery to Airport
Application for Import Permit
Application for Quarantine Space at Perth
Application for Ministry of Agriculture Export Certificate
96 hour paraciticide
Sealing of Air Kennels by Airport Vet
and a days boarding prior to departure.

Having spent the time to apply for our Visa’s I know that we could have pretty easily done a large part of this ourselves. However at this moment in time, with so much stuff going on it makes sense for us to get ‘the boys’ booked in as its one less thing to worry about.

On top of the £1469 to get the cats to Australia, we’ll also need to pay for a months boarding in Perth so lets call it a straight £2000 to get the cats there….gosh!

Now lifes never straoght forward is it so now we have a slight complication. When we initially enquired approx 10 days ago, we were told that we’d be looking at early to Mid November to secure a place in Perth for our cats. Now we’re looking at early December!

This could be a complication for us as potentially, if the house sale goes through in the timescales that it should, we might (Ok its very likely that we might) end up having to move out to Australia before the cats.

Airpets could pick up from West Yorkshire but they would charge approx £400 for the privilege, they do offer boarding though @ £15 per day for two cats sharing so worst case we may need to send them early, board them until their spot becomes available and then ship them out.

Ideally, we’d like to keep this boarding time to a minimal as were mindful that they will need to stay in quarantine for another 30 days when they arrive in Perth.

We could fly them to Sydney and then get an internal flight from Perth but we feel that the whole flying thing will probably be one of the more stressful parts of the whole journey so want to keep the time in the air to a minimal (if you can call 24 hours minimal).

Eitherway, pick up or boarding? This is going to have to be a decision we make once we know when the house is finally sold and when we are all likely to be made homeless.

Oh well, we’ll see how Airpets fair. So far the service seems very professional, the people we have spoken to seem very switched on. Lets just hope they do the best job for our boys