I’d just spent a great few days with my husband, Chris, 36 and our friends over New Year’s, under the stars in Collie, WA, in my vintage yellow and white caravan.
‘I’ll be sad to go home tomorrow,’ I sighed to Chris.
Getting ready for bed, I glanced at the headband I wore to cover my ears and keep them warm.
I don’t need that. It’s boiling, I thought.
I soon dozed off, but at about 3am I popped outside to the loo.
Settling back down to sleep, suddenly I was startled as something flew into my right ear.
As a crawling, fluttering, feeling grew, I shook my head in panic.
‘Chris, I think a moth’s flown in my ear,’ I said as a sickly itching sensation lodged deeper inside.
‘Can you have a look?’
Switching on his phone light, Chris peered in my ear.
‘There’s definitely something in there,’ he said.
‘I’ve got to get it out,’ I panicked, jumping out of bed.
'A stomach-churning, rustling sensation of wings fluttered in my head.'
I leant my head over the caravan sink, and Chris flooded my ear with water.
To my horror the unwelcome visitor just swam deeper into my ear.
‘Quick, get my tweezers from the bedside table,’ I said.
Chris inserted the tweezers in my ear.
‘I’ve got something,’ he said as he started to pull. ‘Oh, it’s a leg!’
I jumped up in fright.
‘Don’t tell me any more,’ I cried in horror. ‘Just get it out.’
I tried to stay still, as a stomach-churning, rustling sensation of wings fluttered in my head.
‘Got him!’ Chris said dropping something into the sink.
‘I don’t want to look,’ I said, gasping for breath and horrified by my crawling guest.
It took me ages to get back to sleep. But when I dared to take a peek the next morning, I saw a 4cm long cockroach.
‘Oh my God! It was a cockroach!’ I said to Chris as my stomach lurched.
To think it had been burrowing in my ear made me feel sick.
' I saw a 4cm long cockroach'
‘We only had the caravan sprayed a few weeks ago. It must’ve flown in,’ I said, stunned.
Back home I went to see the nurse, who checked out my ear.
‘Everything looks fine,’ she said.
I posted my creepy experience on the Caravan and Camping Australia Facebook page.
Hundreds replied.
Takes me back to when I had a beetle in my ear camping, someone wrote.
I was glad to know it wasn’t just me!
It didn’t put me off camping, though. I went back to Collie a few weeks later.
But from now on, I’ll always keep tweezers nearby, and wear a headband to prevent any other insect visitors hitching a lift in my ear.
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