Lapland

[Olof_imp]

D+5. Insects. They rule Lapland. We learned the hard way that gnats and deer flies come in three sizes - small, barely visible and invisible.



They compensate size with numbers and nets only work against the small ones. They seem to alert their pals too, so numbers keep increasing. Easily drives you mad. We asked the locals what to get and ended up with three kinds.



Interestingly, the eco version (the bottle in the middle) seemed to work best and is based on lemon and eucalyptus oil.

The standard procedure at stop evolved into a) open tank bag and grab spray bottle; b) take off gloves and spray plenty on hands; c) in one fluid sequence whip off helmet and stroke cheeks, neck, ears, forehead and hair; d) try in vain to relax and chat to partner while swarms start to form; d) give up, rub scalp vigorously to crush as many of the front line attackers as possible; e) get back on bike, speed off muttering words not suitable for print.

I found this, pretty spot on.



Admittedly, some up there are things of beauty. In most cases we were either too distracted, or too slow to target, track and shoot,but we got a few.