The worst way to find out what a Midge is.

Day 3 - 27th May

During my time in the UK, I’ve heard quite a number of Poms complain about Midges. Being Australian and knowing how bad we’ve got it with the mosquitoes and vast array of other bugs at home, I’ve generally taken these Midges as just another whine of the English.

This has now all been proven incorrect. Midges are quite possibly the most diabolical insects known to man. I hope they have some purpose in the future, as I can see no value of them to this Earth whatsoever.

What’s so bad about them you say? Well, they travel in huge packs, are so small that they crawl through your fly screen wiring to get at you and are resistant to fly spray and every other insect repellant we had in the van.

Once they are on you, they pack a huge punch for their size and you are dumbfounded at the bite they can inflict considering their small stature. Then your body reacts – leaving huge red welts that make you look like you’ve contracted some sort of hideous skin infection.

Luke's legs after a couple of rounds with the Loch Lubraig Midges!

After doing a number of hours research on them, we found that they were particularly bad in the North West of Scotland – exactly where we were and it’s only the females that bite you. We also found that the best repellant for them (and used by the British Marines) is Avon Skin & Body Lotion!

I can just imagine a bunch of the world toughest and most deadly marines camped out in the Scottish Highlands moisturizing each other with Avon’s secret weapon.

Claire and I are now on the lookout for Avons special sauce before we hit up Scandinavia, as they apparently as bad there as they are in the NW tip of Scotland – awesome!

After leaving Loch Lubraig and the midges, we headed north to Findhorn stopping in Pitlorchy for lunch and in Forres for supplies.

Lunch in Pitlorchy

Findhorn is a small coastal town about an hour east of Inverness. We made our way around town to find our next wild camping spot and managed to find a car spot on Findhorn Bay big enough to fit Maxi.

Although, this was only the second place we wild camped, Findhorn is still coming first in the Wild Camping Appreciation Scale (WCAS), which is a measure of the security, facilities, view and slope of a camping site.

As you can see by the picture on the blog, it was a tremendous site and only let down by the ‘Shitability’ rating – i.e. ease of access to local toilet facilities.

View from our campervan door in Findhorn. Rating of 24 on WCAS.

Coffee and cake by the beach campfire in Findhorn.

The night was spent having a great meal of salmon and vegetables from the van and then a campfire on the beach 3 metres from our door, while we ate the left over chocolate cake from Dorothys and drank coffee and rum.