Midges in Scotland

The threat of midges made us think very hard about island hopping in our motorhome in Scotland, but luckily, it did not put us off and as earlier blogs tell, we had an amazing holiday. We were relatively fortunate where the little blighters were concerned, however, because we went in early September, and not in the peak midge season which is June - August. Tiny as they are, midges DO bite, and leave a nasty itchy scab, which takes time to heal. Now the male half of AvailablePitch has buffalo hide, through which nothing penetrates, however, I am not so lucky and clearly have an invisible notice on my body which says “all flying insects please feel free to bite any time, any place, anywhere”.

In theory, campsites by the sea should suffer less. In reality, whilst they are less bothered than non-coastal sites, there will still be a few midges around. However, we found it tolerable, and there are things you can do which DO help. The day time was fine, the problem came early evening – 5-ish onwards. If the weather was fine and we wanted to sit out in an evening, we pulled the motorhome’s awning out, and lit several sticks of incense both citronella and lavender which was extremely effective. The smoke and fragrance from the incense was held under the awning, and we were able to sit out trouble free. The campfire also helped alot, however, you do end up smelling of wood smoke!

The other thing you can do is to use Avon Skin-So-Soft Dry Oil spray (blue bottle), which, whilst not being designed as an insect repellent, if used dilligently, seems to help. More about this in a later blog.

In summary, pick your time of year, go prepared, and don't let the possibility of midges put you off.

Picture above - Sunset, motorhome with awning out, campfire burning, 6 pm-ish, Muasdale Touring Park, Kintyre.