3 top tips to help you avoid mosquito bites while spending time in nature

If you’re enjoy­ing the great out­doors in South Aus­tralia, whether it’s camp­ing along the Riv­er Mur­ray, walk­ing in one of our nation­al parks or just enjoy­ing the gift of nature at your favourite spot, the last thing you want is mos­qui­tos spoil­ing your day.

Mozzies love long sum­mer days and nights as much as we do, and every­one knows they’re a nui­sance. But they can also spread some seri­ous dis­eases if they bite, so it’s impor­tant to pre­pare before you go and take action while you’re there.

The most com­mon of these dis­eases seen in SA is Ross Riv­er virus, fol­lowed by Barmah For­est virus.

Rar­er, more seri­ous and some­times fatal are Mur­ray Val­ley encephali­tis and Kun­jin virus. 

While mos­qui­tos are about, rather than run­ning for the hills there are some sim­ple things you can do to pre­vent being bitten.

Here’s some easy-to-fol­low tips:

1. Cov­er up

Pack and wear long, loose-fit­ting and lighter coloured clothing.

Make sure clothes cov­er as much of the body as possible.

Mozzies can bite through tight clothes like jeans – so choose loose.

If travelling/​holidaying with a baby or a tod­dler, use mos­qui­to-proof net­ting on prams and strollers.

2. Repel

Use insect repel­lent con­tain­ing DEET (diethyl tolu­amide) or picaridin.

Con­sid­er using mos­qui­to coils outside.

Fol­low the instruc­tions on the labels of any repel­lents you use.

3. Elim­i­nate

Mozzies breed in still water – fresh or salty. So look around the cab­in, shack, car­a­van or tent site and emp­ty any water in con­tain­ers (no mat­ter how small) and/​or cov­er things hold­ing water.

Same goes for boats, canoes and dinghies – store these so they can’t and don’t hold water.

As well as the cov­er up, repel and elim­i­nate approach, putting oth­er phys­i­cal bar­ri­ers in place can also help.

Con­sid­er hav­ing mos­qui­to-proof mesh fit­ted on win­dows or close win­dows if you can. If there’s no insect screens or if you’re sleep­ing out­doors near creeks, water holes/​swamps, a riv­er or even long grass, hav­ing mos­qui­to nets over sleep­ing areas and bed­ding can help.

There’s so much to see and do in SA so take a bit of time to make sure you’re equipped to fight the bite to make every adven­ture all the more mem­o­rable – and for all the right reasons.

Look­ing for ways to enjoy the best that SA’s nature has to offer? Check out ourlibrary of ideas for you to see and do.

This sto­ry was orig­i­nal­ly post­ed in Jan­u­ary 2021.