November 7 - 8: Travel Days

 After an exhausting but fun 4 days in Disneyland with all the grandkids and 24+ hours of travel, we finally arrived at our hotel in Nelson, tired but excited to be here. We’ll spend today (November 9th) exploring the town and packing our “trekking” bags with everything we’ll need for our 3-day Abel Tasman hike.

Our flights from Los Angeles to Fiji and then onward to Wellington were smooth and uneventful. With Wellington as our point of entry, we had to complete a travel declaration which included the typical questions about food, plants and animals, etc. One of the questions was whether we were traveling with any used outdoor equipment (meaning our hiking boots, backpacks, and poles). As we soon found out, these items had to be examined by “bio-hazard” personnel. We were directed to a separate area where we waited a fair amount of time while people in front of us were having crates and crates of packaged food items opened and examined. (Good thing we had a 3 hour layover before our connecting flight to Nelson!) The employee who was eventually assigned to help us was very thorough in her examination. She found a small amount of dirt on one of my boots, which she insisted needed to be cleaned off. New Zealand takes the preservation of their natural resources VERY seriously!


 
Some of our Disneyland entourage







Morgan, Ashley and families

L-R: Zoey, Wesley, Sylvia, Reid, Jake and Kat





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