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Destinations > Bzzzzzzzz - Slap!
Bzzzzzzzz - Slap!
Issue: August 2007
Words by Denis O'Byrne
A while back I was checking out the tents in a Darwin camping store when I got talking with a couple of young English tourists on the start of an extended camping tour of Australia.
Their first night out was on the Mary River floodplain. It was hot and muggy, being early dry season, but the sunset was a yellow-and-red delight and they could hear the great fl ocks of magpie geese out on the nearby swamps.
As the steaks sizzled in the pan they opened a couple of cold ones and settled back in their camp chairs, enjoying the moment. It was about then that the experience began to turn into the worst night of their lives. As the sun slipped below the horizon a mosquito landed on a bare ankle and began to feed.
A well-directed slap and the mozzie became a splash of red blood on white skin. Soon they were both slapping frantically as a voracious horde of mozzies descended for the feast.
The battle was short, but fi erce and bloody. No matter how many mozzies they swatted, more appeared to take their place. They were wearing sandals (no socks!), shorts and singlets - hardly what's recommend for outdoor evening wear on the Top End wetlands - and a desperate search failed to find the insect repellent they'd purchased in Darwin. In full retreat they grabbed their beers and half-cooked meal and dived into the tents.
It would be nice if this sorry tale was to end here, but sadly their tents were two-jockey domes whose ventilation consisted of a small screened opening at each end. They likened it to being in a sauna without the steam. After 10 or so hours of this, much of the gloss had gone off camping.
However, when daylight came the mozzies disappeared, and a cup of coffee in the cool morning air restored their sense of humour. A group of locals camped nearby gave them some useful tips on living with mozzies, advising them to replace their tent with something more suitable before going any further, which was what they were doing when I met them.
Like those poor young Poms, most people who've spent time camping near mosquito-infested swamps will have a tale of woe - even locals. For example, a couple of Darwinites I know went out to Kakadu for a camping weekend and in their wisdom decided to leave the mosquito nets at home.
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But the mozzies were numerous and hungry, and the only way they had of escaping their attentions was to swelter under the sheets. Around midnight they decided that they'd had enough, so they packed up and drove home.
After a night like that you'd have to wonder how the original Australians coped during the mosquito season. One type of shelter in Arnhem Land consisted of an elevated sleeping platform roofed with paperbark sheets and raised about 1.8 metres above a smoky fi re, which kept the mozzies away.
In 1911 the anthropologist and photographer Baldwin Spencer recorded the details of the manufacture and use of a traditional mosquito-proof shelter on the Roper River:
"It was fifteen feet long, between four and fi ve feet broad, and four feet high. The framework was rather like a boat turned upside down. At either end was a forked stick, and between these two ran a ridge-pole, occupying the position of an upturned keel. A series of ribs arched
over on either side... Sheets of paper-bark were very ingeniously laid on so as to form a wall impenetrable both to rain and mosquitoes." Through the "small opening... left at one end... the natives crawl until the hut can hold no more. The opening is closed, smoke fires are lighted, and here, almost hermetically sealed, they swelter and choke until the rain clears off or the morning light drives the mosquitoes away. If they cannot get bark their only hope is to make great smoke fires with green bushes and grass, but, in the real mosquito season, they have, at best,
very uncomfortable and disturbed nights and have to make up for it by sleeping during the day."
On the face of it it seems that the cure must have been worse than the complaint. Even the poorest designed modern tent would have to be better than the traditional paperbark torture chambers of the Top End aborigines.
Words by Denis O'Byrne
A while back I was checking out the tents in a Darwin camping store when I got talking with a couple of young English tourists on the start of an extended camping tour of Australia.
Their first night out was on the Mary River floodplain. It was hot and muggy, being early dry season, but the sunset was a yellow-and-red delight and they could hear the great fl ocks of magpie geese out on the nearby swamps.
As the steaks sizzled in the pan they opened a couple of cold ones and settled back in their camp chairs, enjoying the moment. It was about then that the experience began to turn into the worst night of their lives. As the sun slipped below the horizon a mosquito landed on a bare ankle and began to feed.
A well-directed slap and the mozzie became a splash of red blood on white skin. Soon they were both slapping frantically as a voracious horde of mozzies descended for the feast.
The battle was short, but fi erce and bloody. No matter how many mozzies they swatted, more appeared to take their place. They were wearing sandals (no socks!), shorts and singlets - hardly what's recommend for outdoor evening wear on the Top End wetlands - and a desperate search failed to find the insect repellent they'd purchased in Darwin. In full retreat they grabbed their beers and half-cooked meal and dived into the tents.
It would be nice if this sorry tale was to end here, but sadly their tents were two-jockey domes whose ventilation consisted of a small screened opening at each end. They likened it to being in a sauna without the steam. After 10 or so hours of this, much of the gloss had gone off camping.
However, when daylight came the mozzies disappeared, and a cup of coffee in the cool morning air restored their sense of humour. A group of locals camped nearby gave them some useful tips on living with mozzies, advising them to replace their tent with something more suitable before going any further, which was what they were doing when I met them.
Like those poor young Poms, most people who've spent time camping near mosquito-infested swamps will have a tale of woe - even locals. For example, a couple of Darwinites I know went out to Kakadu for a camping weekend and in their wisdom decided to leave the mosquito nets at home.
read on below advertisement
But the mozzies were numerous and hungry, and the only way they had of escaping their attentions was to swelter under the sheets. Around midnight they decided that they'd had enough, so they packed up and drove home.
After a night like that you'd have to wonder how the original Australians coped during the mosquito season. One type of shelter in Arnhem Land consisted of an elevated sleeping platform roofed with paperbark sheets and raised about 1.8 metres above a smoky fi re, which kept the mozzies away.
In 1911 the anthropologist and photographer Baldwin Spencer recorded the details of the manufacture and use of a traditional mosquito-proof shelter on the Roper River:
"It was fifteen feet long, between four and fi ve feet broad, and four feet high. The framework was rather like a boat turned upside down. At either end was a forked stick, and between these two ran a ridge-pole, occupying the position of an upturned keel. A series of ribs arched
over on either side... Sheets of paper-bark were very ingeniously laid on so as to form a wall impenetrable both to rain and mosquitoes." Through the "small opening... left at one end... the natives crawl until the hut can hold no more. The opening is closed, smoke fires are lighted, and here, almost hermetically sealed, they swelter and choke until the rain clears off or the morning light drives the mosquitoes away. If they cannot get bark their only hope is to make great smoke fires with green bushes and grass, but, in the real mosquito season, they have, at best,
very uncomfortable and disturbed nights and have to make up for it by sleeping during the day."
On the face of it it seems that the cure must have been worse than the complaint. Even the poorest designed modern tent would have to be better than the traditional paperbark torture chambers of the Top End aborigines.
