@geezer, good point, anyway I will find out how much it costs, I can bring a lot of packing materials to China post and pack everything there if necessary, I suspect it might be too expensive for 30-50kg anyway, I might have to give everything away again :(

Hi there,
I have looked into this because, at some point in the future I will be returning to Aus. and wanting to bring some stuff back with me.

You have a few options.
1/ Via post.

2/ purchase extra luggage on your flight home (surprising not too expensive for extra bags if you pre-pay). 50kg is just two extra medium sized cases. Probably wont be more than 200AUD$

3/ A quick baidu search of the words "船运" (sea freight) reveals several ads offering international freight. It's up to your Chinese skills to contact them and organise it, get a quote etc. Then there's a lot of paperwork that needs to be done.The hassle factor may not be worth the savings, esp. if you don't have any furniture etc to bring back.

4/ The other option would be to look at Australian removalist companies. A lot of the bigger ones (yes, more expensive, I know) such as Wridgeways, Allied Pickfords etc, offer international moving in both directions. So, that may be more convenient, but possibly more expensive.

5/ If you work here, your employer may pay for your relocation costs. Or, find a job in Aus before you leave, and they may pay for the costs.

Hope this helps! I'm sure you've gone over all this a million times before- I hope I was able to add something useful :)

Kind regards,
-S

@SJayne

Thanks!! Yes very helpful.

I suspect extra luggage might be cheapest but (for reasons that would take to long to explain) I'm planning to catch the train to Shenzhen and then fly from Hong Kong and also have a shoulder injury so it wouldn't be very easy.

So I will look into the post and maybe the Australian companies more I guess. :) wish I had better Chinese :(

Please let us know which way you decide to ship your stuff in the end. This sort of question has come up before and will no doubt come up again. The information will be useful.

Ok will do, I just found China post postage rates here:
www.travelchinaguide.com/essential/postal-service/rate.htm
Surface mail ¥15/kg after the first kilo is incredibly cheap, I would have thought it would be more than that even within Australia,

but maybe untracked it's not.
If this is correct there is not big difference between airmail, ¥70 and SAL ¥54(air between countries) . Probably I will try to pack and send 10kg of important stuff by airmail or SAL soon and the rest by surface later. Will let you know if I do how it goes.

China post is very cheap, and because of this expect it to be very slow (low priority) in Australia.

I sent a package to UK once. It took 4 days to get to UK, and then 3 weeks to get from the port of entry to my home; but that is UK.
I would still check that thing about max weight for a single parcel. This is more likely to be a problem with the Australian postal services. Also, from experience, heavier packages get damaged more.

I would also write 'books' on the outer packaging in black marker pen. It is less likely to attract 'mice', the light fingered kind.
Some countries also have zero import duty and vat for printed materials. I am not sure if books qualify.

Hello, just finally updating this since I said I would.

In the end I sent everything China Post and they were great. I bought boxes at the post office and took my stuff there in suitcases and packed it in front of them. They wrapped the boxes in a lot of tape and the boxes all arrived safely in regional Australia in the amount of time specified (I can't remember what that was now but a number of weeks).

A good result :-)
Worth knowing for future people sending stuff home.

Yep, thanks for your and everyone else's help.

:D :D

Well, to Australia anyway, though I guess postal systems in most countries would have no problem sending it forward.