Sandflies

Sandflies are just little small flies that are nasty biting buggers! Apparently only the females bite, but there are plenty of them around. Sean has had very little bother with them but it seems my blood was much tastier than his. I had some big reactions to them on the North Island and finally found out that if you take Vitamin B your blood stops tasting as nice so you don’t get bitten as much. I am now a dedicated Vitamin B capsule taker!

Everyone warned us that the sandflies on the South Island, particularly the West Coast, were much worse than the ones on the North Island, so I was quite worried about the trip South. However, by the time we got there I’d finally built up a bit of immunity and learned not to scratch them. If you scratch at all they just get worse and worse, till you find yourself waking up in the night in mid scratch! Also, I wasn’t plagued by them much at all as we had the two other Irish girls, who hadn’t yet learned about vitamin B, with us down there. They were being bitten constantly and having the same reactions as I had before! Milford Sound is so full of sandflies you see people standing talking on the street waving them away constantly!

So, while they are not a reason not to come here, I would definitely advise a dose of vitamin B before you make the trip!