In Reply to: We bought them from Mackro's posted by opal on Wednesday, 9. February 2005 at 16:11 Bali Time:
Thought I would be clever and take some fish scales with me to weigh our bags before we came back. You know the kind, a loop at the top, a scale guide with a spring encased within it and a big blunt hook at the bottom for hanging what you want to weigh from it. On the way over I had it in a suitcase, but, with the rush to pack and weigh four big bags (stuffed full) coming home, I just shoved it in a backpack after weighing the bags. Well, coming into the transit lounge in Oz (before the flight on to NZ) the scanner picked up my husband's razor with a spiral cord, and the scales showing up as a weird unknown object on x-ray, and on examination they had what the staff thought was a dangerous hook. The razor checked out okay, once they realised what it was, but they confiscated my trusty fish scales! The really stupid thing is it was not even as sharp as a blunt pencil, and the metal forks they served with our food on the flight had sharper tongs. My husband was not impressed that we got waylaid because of my mistake in packing. He was getting a bit frazzled by then because at the same transit check desk on the way over to Bali they had also chosen him at random, and used some fancy detector on him which reads petrochemical or explosives residue...even the tiniest traces. Nothing to worry about though, just the embarrasment of standing there before a queue of people being scanned and setting off a beeper.
Then when we got to NZ coming home, Customs took some of our declared goods for insect holes, and he was told to spread his four novelty lighters out in our hand luggage as they are dangerous if they hit against each other without the special safety locks lighters must have here in NZ, and he could not travel with all four in his own carry-on bag.