Australian flies are so much worse than the ones I've encountered elsewhere. It doesn't matter if you brush them off: they will hover just out of reach for a few seconds and then settle back down on you. Once you attract a cloud of flies (and you will) there is no getting rid of them. You can run for blocks and they will stay put for the ride. And they spend all their time trying to get into your mouth, nose and eyes (people say they are after the moisture, but EWW).
The ones in the picture stayed with us for the whole ten minute walk to the beach (yes, this is another photo from last weekend), and settled down happily on our stuff to wait for us while we went swimming.* Then they followed us all the way back to the house.
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* Australia is also the only place I know of where huge numbers of flies hang out at the beach. That is seriously weird, guys.
Thursday, October 19, 2006
The worst thing about summer
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13 Comments:
I agree....ewwwww...trying to get in your mouth, nose...ewwww
dude! ew!
I think you just chose the wrong location in Australia. Ick!
Also, there's a really nice beach here that has to be avoided for half the summer because of enormous, nasty flies (worse than those ones), so it happens elsewhere as well, apparently.
I was going to mention the beach that Lucy mentioned. But ewwww!
So do you have one of those hats with the corks hanging round your face? ;-)
Wow. That is perhaps the single most powerful reason I know to stay away from Australian beaches. Ew, ew. Do they *do* anything to you, or just hover/land?
Do they *do* anything to you, or just hover/land?
I count trying to get into your nose/mouth/eyes and making you feel really icky when you accidentally swallow one as 'doing' something to you, but they don't bite or anything, if that's what you mean.
Lucy, you have to email me and let me know where to find fly-less beaches sometime, because I have yet to come across one.
Oh, and New Kid, no hat :) But I totally see the point of them.
And one day last summer when working out on a farm all day (and having things in my hands most of the time so couldn't even try to shoo the flies from my face), I was forced to resort to hanging muslin over my hat and tying it around my neck like a bee-keeper. Because I just can't work when I have to stop and blow my nose to remove the flies every ten seconds :S
Flies are definately one of the more horrid things about summer, but I generally dislike summer anyway (cold weather girl, me, I melt in the heat).
Beaches without flies, though... hmm, there are some nice ones up the coast, near Caloundra, though there are a lot of people there. Bribie Island is a nice place, but a bit out of the way. Spent a week at Coolangatta once in late November which was fairly free of flies. Not sure about other parts of the country, let alone the rest of the world, since I mostly stick away from the sorts of beaches you'd want to go to for a day trip with swimming (I love the beach near Bluff on a stormy day)
ishy...
Although, there are smiliar biting black flies around Lake Superior when there isn't a wind. We spent 10 days circling the lake and the whole time there were nasty flies within 100 yards of the lake.
Doesn't Geekman ever shower? 'Cause dude, that is nasty.
I am fascinated by this. I can't believe people put up with it.
I thought I had it bad when I have 15 or 20 flies in my apartment, but all they did was sit on the walls.
sheepish - that's not me. That was some miscellaneous German, who obviously had bad personal hygiene. I was behind the photographer, sweet-smelling and fly-free. Really :)
I can't believe people put up with it.
Not having any choice about it has something to do with that :)
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