Arrival in New Zealand with obstacles

It's pretty far away after all. If you sit on the plane in Beijing and wait for the flight to Auckland, the map shows 10,500 km, which corresponds to a flight time of around 12 hours. So from Beijing, which is pretty far away from Germany.

We started at 1:15 a.m. sharp. The flight was very bumpy, there was a lot of turbulence and so we were shaken up quite a bit. There was no sleeping and time passed in slow motion. The entertainment program with Chinese films wasn't a big hit either. But at some point the time had come and the island appeared.

It was around 6pm in NZ when we landed and were finally able to get out. The first surprise upon entry. There were only machines. So put on your passport, take off your mask and look into the camera. Then the barrier opens and you can go through. If, and only then, you have correctly answered the three questions that will be asked. 2 times yes and once no. If you then answer yes to the third question about your criminal past because you are annoyed by the questions and don't read the question correctly, you unfortunately - like my travel companion - have to go to the special counter.

At some point, Judy was also allowed to enter. This was followed by a check by a person to whom we handed the form filled out on the plane.

That went very well and on to the next station. This is where the queue formed and it was the check for forbidden food imports. This is taken really seriously and you could see from their faces that the Kiwis, no matter how nice they are, don't understand how to have fun in the relationship when, despite dozens of tips, you may have brought an apple with you from Europe. You can also understand that they want to keep the island clean and don't let invasive species in. I asked the travel companion several times and always got a “yes” that she no longer had any forbidden foods in her backpack. For whatever reason, we were then allowed to continue walking in the green line, which is actually only used by flight staff, and so I saw us outside, the large exit door in front of my eyes. Now quickly pass the station with the dog and you'll be fine. But unfortunately, unfortunately, the dog almost freaked out when the travel companion drove past him with her luggage cart. The dog jumped on the suitcase and sniffed the backpack and my expression darkened, especially when the travel companion then said that she might have overlooked a small apple in the backpack. I couldn't believe it at first and I saw this dog who was so fixated on the backpack and I saw the credit card charged with NZ$400 because that's the penalty if you end up having something with you. To cut a long story short, the extensive investigation by the customs officer did not yield any results and the travel companion was able to see the explanation. Apparently there were still smells in the backpack that the dog reacted to.

We were lucky and the journey could begin.