Like most countries, when you arrive in New Zealand, you are required to go through an entry process. This will involve immigration, customs and finally after you collect your baggage, you will be questioned by a MAF Biosecurity inspector.
On a recent arrival at Queenstown airport from Brisbane, I was awaiting my turn in a long queue for the usual biosecurity questions about the possibility that my bag contained fruit, nuts or raw meat and fish. To the credit of the inspector, he changed his monotonous question to that of “did I have any boomerangs or didgeridoos” Luckily I had left my two metre long didgeridoo at home, so I was then shown an equally long queue for the final x-ray machine check of my luggage.
While waiting for the x-ray, I noticed that the people behind me had declared to the officer that they had hiking boots. It is a NZ requirement that all hiking or sporting footwear be properly cleaned prior to arrival and declared to the biosecurity inspector.
The hiking boot visitors were quickly whisked away to have their boots removed from their luggage. The MAF officer then commenced a thorough spray, scrub, rub and finally polish of the offending boots. The boots were then handed back to the travellers who were shown the door to enter New Zealand. Meanwhile I spent another fifteen minutes before the x-ray machine proved my innocence and I was finally free to enter NZ.