Life in the slow lane: Welcome to New Zealand!

We are standing in the slow queue at Auckland airport. We inch forward and stop.

Kiwis are lovely people but can't they count? Six customs officers are checking quarantine declaration forms. There are four for the line to our left and two for us!


We inch forward and stop! A tour guide with a bundle of passports and forms pushes to the front of our queue. She approaches one of the desks. There is a problem. One officer stops serving our long, long line and disappears with the tour operator. Now there is only one inspector for us.

We inch forward and stop! We fantasise about ducking under the tape and joining the lucky travellers in the lane to our left - but with 72.5 kilos of luggage including two almost unmanageable mountain bike bags this is not a fantasy we can play out. Besides no-one else changes lanes. Maybe you're not allowed. Maybe the others, looking equally tired and frustrated know something we don't about what happens if you try to change lines.

We inch forward and stop! We landed half an hour ago. We don't know it yet but it will be another two hours and thirty minutes before we escape the quarantine line and the car hire queue which replaces it. We are grateful we have no tight connections to make.

The pace of life is slower here.

We inch forward and stop - again! Nine hours from home in Sydney to rental car in Auckland. It is only a three hour flight. I think I could swim it in less time.

• Three hours from walking out of our front door to boarding the plane. 
• Three hours from take-off to touchdown.
• Another three hours from touchdown to clearing customs and quarantine and collecting our rental car.

The first six hours of our journey were fair enough.  With two mountain bikes to dismantle and pack-up in the airport carpark we left home in plenty of time. In the difficult and stressful world of flying bicycles this was our smoothest journey ever. No unexpected traffic on the way to the airport. No last minute panic while we struggled to squeeze the bikes into their bags. No problems at check-in and best of all, no apparent damage when we arrived. 

You can't really expect much time shaved off the take-off to touchdown part. If it takes three hours to fly then it takes three hours to fly - but THREE hours to exit Auckland airport - you have got to be kidding.

Our 'undamaged' bikes, by one of Auckland's Bays

We inch forward. It is our turn at last. The quarantine officer glances at our declaration form and then looks at our bike bags.

"Road bikes or mountain bikes," she asks.

We know this game. The clever answer is 'road bikes'.  In her world, road bikes don't collect dirt - 'bio-hazardous material' in the technical vernacular. I am tempted to answer 'road bikes' just to see what will happen. Will she let us through without directing us to yet another interminable queue.

"Mountain bikes," David cuts in - he has had a sixth sense of my impending criminal intent.

"Gate No.2," she replies.

We move to join another long, slow, queue. We inch forward and stop. Everyone else in this line also has sporting equipment except the couple in front of us. I pass the time trying to imagine what 'bio-hazardous' nightmares they might be trying to import. When it is their turn to be inspected they point to their shoes. They don't even open their bags. They look like perfectly ordinary shoes to me.

I am disappointed that I will never solve the mystery of the shoes. I need not be. Later we will have a long, friendly conversation while we all wait together in the car rental queue.

Looking back on the city from around the Bay

Our turn at last.

"I need to see the tyres," says the inspector.

These are the world's cleanest bikes. We know the drill. Yesterday I spent a couple of hours hosing and scrubbing every last micron of Australian dirt off them.  Kiwis don't want Australian dirt in their country. The fact that New Zealand's farmlands get  top-dressed with Australian soil blown across the Tasman every time there is a strong wind seems to have completely escaped them.  No matter; the inspector is appreciative of my bike cleaning efforts. We open the bags. She glances at the tyres and waves us through.  We know the rules of this game and we have won.

We escape into the arrivals hall - only to be confronted with a crowd six deep at the rental car desk. D got a good deal from Thrifty - so it seems did everyone else. The other car hire desks are deserted. Next time we are hiring the most expensive car we can find and skipping the queues.

We inch forward and stop - again! It feels like we left home a week ago. We are tired, we are hungry and we are thirsty.  Once we get our car we still have to re-assemble the bikes and fit our portable bike rack to the car boot.  I'm reminded why my third rule of packing is ' never fly with bikes' - I'm struggling to remember why it isn't my first rule.

........................................................

And the couple with the shoes - it turns out that he is a horse trainer and they had walked through the stables before leaving home that morning. They don't want to chance bringing bio-hazardous material into the country. The Kiwis have one of the world's most beautiful and pristine environments - and they want to keep it that way.

Welcome to New Zealand!

Are you looking for a New Zealand road trip itinerary? Fellow bloggers Bistra and Nace have put together a great North Island road trip itinerary.