Bushwalk Australia

i know someone who had their boots steam cleaned by officials when they were travelling between nz and tas, i think it happened after they bush walked in Tas. cant recall which airport it was at..
anyone had this happen to them? any advice to avoid it?

I had a similar experience going to nz as i had been on a farm, other lying not sure if there is options and I don't recommend the first option as the fine may be more the cost of boots.

Cheers

Steve

was there any visible dirt on your boots or do you think they were doing it by default because of where you'd been?

wayno - Like a good trans-tasman citizen, if there's a need to have your boots cleaned, just get em cleaned. Lots of anglers get their gear checked and cleaned when coming in from NZ due to didymo, and Tassie is right in the environment for didymo transfer. Tassie is also pretty concerned about agricultural biosecurity - as are NZ. Good things, worth protecting.

fair enough i was planning on disinfecting them between flying, the guy i know who had them steam cleaned had them ruined.

myself and my brother had out tents and assosciated bits and bobs done on landing in wellington. now our standard refrain regarding a dirty tent is "time for a nz trip"

Here is a good manual with ideas on how best to NOT transfer diseases as you walk around the place

http://www.dpiw.tas.gov.au/inter.nsf/At ... eadswe.pdf

Hi wayno,

No dirt just where I had been........

My friends thought I was busted for carrying drugs or something as customs took 30 minutes to clean them and as they went through a different line they sailed through customs. and wondered where i was. lol:


The joys of working for a rural bank, I'm on different farms every day and customs were just doing their job & I got very clean boots as a result.

Cheers

Steve

wayno wrote:fair enough i was planning on disinfecting them between flying, the guy i know who had them steam cleaned had them ruined.

How did a steam clean ruin them shees !! it is only hot water and some pressure surely
corvus

I've had mine done the last couple of times Ive flewn back in from NZ. I've not had any troubles with the boots. In fact they came up like new

Best way to avoid steam cleaning is just to remove all visible dirt from them yourself. Customs may still want to clean them depending on what you've declared on your landing form, but if they look pretty clean already, you reduce your chances of it happenning.

The first time I had removed all dirt (even purchased a cheap toothbrush to clean the soles etc) and removed all visible signs of dirt. They didn't care. They were determined to clean them. The next time I didn't bother as I figured they were going to do a much better job anyway

Having your boots and other walking/fishing gear inspected on trans Tasman trips is a fact of life that will not change, if anything it will get more intensive. If AQIS in Australia or MAFF in NZ decide to inspect or clean there is no way to avoid it. In any case no real bushwalker would attempt to do so.

Bluegum,

Ha. My experience was that the customs guy told me off for not having cleaned them sufficiently myself.

I guess you can't win either way.

corvus wrote:

wayno wrote:fair enough i was planning on disinfecting them between flying, the guy i know who had them steam cleaned had them ruined.

How did a steam clean ruin them shees !! it is only hot water and some pressure surely
corvus

not sure, nubuck leather can go very soft and funny, esp when its old, so maybe the leather wasnt up to it anymore

Recently came back from Indonesia and had to check a few boxes because of having been to some fairly remote areas in central Bali. Despite having admitted being in contact with rural areas and streams/ waterways and what ever else there was, I had no problems. They just simply asked to see the bottoms of my boots and when they only saw a few specks of dirt let me through with no further questions.

mjdalessa wrote:Recently came back from Indonesia and had to check a few boxes because of having been to some fairly remote areas in central Bali. Despite having admitted being in contact with rural areas and streams/ waterways and what ever else there was, I had no problems. They just simply asked to see the bottoms of my boots and when they only saw a few specks of dirt let me through with no further questions.

Back to NZ?

To Tasmania.

mjdalessa wrote:To Tasmania.

Pretty sure steam cleaning is only in NZ. Doubt they even have the facilities in Tas

Strider wrote:Pretty sure steam cleaning is only in NZ. Doubt they even have the facilities in Tas

No, the Industrial Revolution hasn't hit there yet. Give us another couple of centuries and we might manage.

My only experience with this was coming back into Aus from the UK. I had been fly fishing on a farm and had got the boots a bit messy (animal waste etc). I didn't want to bring any nasties back into Aus so cleaned them, brushed out the tread carefully with water etc. That was a few of days before departure so there was plenty of time for them to dry (critical) before arriving in Aus. I wore the boots on the plane and declared everything up front. They just asked to see the soles and let me straight through. I have heard of fishos wading boots being ruined by heat treatment, shrunk soles etc. Some plastics just don't like heat.

They have a point about people not cleaning gear, there isn't enough resources to thoroughly check everything. Checks are targeted by profile as well as random so some stuff does get through. Surely cleaning gear it is the travelers ecological responsibility.


Regards,
Ken

In 3 NZ trips I've never had a issue with boots and camping gear. That's being honest and ticking all the forest, farm etc boxes on the customs form.

I always scrub up and rewax my boots before going (if wearing leather boots)

Never had a problem. They just give it a look and as it's clear I've taken some effort to clean them well it's straight through.
I guess I've had decent customs officers. Get a mean one and they will run you through the hoops if they want.

I've been waved through, threatened with fines and had my boots taken to be cleaned by a very cheery NZ customs guy while travelling to Wellington so it seems to be up to the guy on the gate at the day in NZ.
Comming back to Aus from NZ and or other places the customs people are more interested in my dirty laundry than anything else...
They did not steam clean the boots on that occasion only a scrub with some sort of disinfectant, do they do that in Aucland airport?

I used to work for AQIS at Sydney and would regularly scrub boots- actually thats what made me leave the job- all those boots from people trekking Nepal made me want to go too! Like others have said, usually we would inspect the soles for visible soil, scrub them if dirty or wave them thru if clean. Now when I travel I always clean boots and tentpegs, declare them and have them handy to show the inspectors which usually gets you thru pretty quick.
Liz

I haven't been stopped about boots - I always clean them before travelling. Last time I came back from Europe to Sydney they wanted to inspect the tips of my walking poles. Luckily I had scrubbed them as well before travelling.