(no subject)

[pebblerocker]

 I'm in Australia!

It is still dry and flat and full of gum trees.

And I'm now down in the Australian customs records as a Bad Person.  I put down on my customs form that I had no food or plant matter in my bags, and the X-ray machine found the apple that my man had forgotten to eat when we were waiting for the plane in Auckland.  I got a very stern talking to from the official, but she let me off the A$220 fine this time.  No second chances though, if I'm caught smuggling again I think they're going to lock me up and throw away the key.

Comments

[diatribein.livejournal.com]

Note to Self: Read friends page before making comments on replies in your journal.

Yeah I just guessed you were in Australia in my reply to you in my journal. Very silly of me not to read the friends page first I suppose.

I know exactly why Australia has such stringent restrictions on bringing in food. Introduced species (even the microscopic kind possibly hiding out in fruit) have cause havoc to the natural environment there, but $220 is a fuck of a lot of money for one apple. Why not just confiscate it and give you a warning. I mean it is pretty obvious that it was a mistake. It's not like you were trying to import a basket full of apples or anything. Clearly it was just absent mindedness. $220 is really harsh. I know they want to deter people from bringing in pests, but this is really just punishing forgetful people and giving the government lots of cash at the expense of clueless individuals. They have the x-ray machine there that will catch it every time anyway. Honestly they should have confiscated the fruit, given you a warning, and made a note on your passport in their computer system so that if you ever did it again you'd be fined. $220 is just too much.

[pebblerocker]

No, they did let me off the fine this time, and the apple has been safely incinerated or whatever it is they do with them, so the environment is safe. The fine really is very high, but they could see that I wasn't smuggling with evil intent so they just threatened me a bit and let me go. After all they can't just allow people to wander through with all sorts of stuff and let them off because they're being thick. Ignorance is no excuse, especially with all the signs throughout the airport about it.

I do hope they'd be a little less harsh with someone who didn't speak English, though.