Sandflies

Before I get into what Scott and I did on our free day in Queenstown, I thought I'd just introduce you to nobody's friend, the NZ Sandfly. Sandflies are like an evil cross between a deerfly and a mosquito. They are around the size of a large female mosquito, but have the more hardy build of a deerfly (i.e. usually takes more than one smack to kill them). Unlike the mosquito they do not have a proboscis to suck out your delicious blood, but instead like a deerfly take a nice big chomp. Like the mosquito they do inject an anticoagulant into the wound to keep the blood flowing which causes the bite to become extremely itchy (worse than a mosquito bite) and often to spread into a rash.
There are quite a few sandflies in the North Island of NZ, but they are particularly bad in the South Island which is reflected in the names of some areas such as Sandfly Bay and Sandfly Point. They are usually worst near lakes and other waterways, but still gave Scott and I some bites around the huts along the Greenstone Caples Track, particularly at Upper Caples Hut. They were also quite prolific along the Kepler Track although we were lucky that it was late Autumn and not summer when I am guessing they become a nightmare.

P.S. I would have posted a photo of I sandfly here, but they are so evil, that clicking on a photo of one on the internet may have introduced a virus onto my computer!