Australians heading into the bush this spring are being warned to take ticks seriously, after a routine walk in northern NSW ended in a hospital bed and more than 600 tiny parasites.

Michelle Colpus, a nurse from the Northern Rivers, had spent a few hours photographing fungi and insects along a short stretch of track in Nightcap National Park. She felt nothing on the walk.

It was only after a shower at home that the itching started — first one arm, then welts spreading across her shoulders and torso.

Her husband tried to tweeze the specks out. He couldn't keep up.

They were hiding in her hair

Colpus believes she brushed a cluster of newly hatched larvae — what locals call a tick bomb — and carried hundreds of them home in her hair. The shower washed them out, and they attached all at once.

Even as an experienced nurse and bushwalker, she ended up in hospital, where a colleague spent two solid hours plucking ticks out with tweezers. By her count the total was more than 600.

The bites brought on welts, then stroke-like symptoms that eased once the ticks were out. She is now waiting on tests for mammalian meat allergy — the lifelong red-meat allergy a paralysis-tick bite can trigger.

It isn't rare, and it isn't just the dog's problem

Most of us file ticks under "the dog's problem". The dog gets a monthly chewable or a collar, and that's the tick plan sorted.

The numbers say otherwise. Around 10,000 dogs a year get tick paralysis in eastern Australia, and the average vet claim is $2,402. But people cop it too: a paralysis-tick bite carries roughly a 50 per cent chance of developing mammalian meat allergy, and Australia has the highest rate of it in the world, with cases rising about 40 per cent a year.

In February the NSW Coroner confirmed the country's first death from the allergy — a 16-year-old on the Central Coast who ate beef sausages on a camping trip.

The paralysis tick lives in a coastal band from Cooktown in Queensland to Lakes Entrance in Victoria. Sydney's Northern Beaches, the south-east Queensland hinterland, the Northern Rivers and the NSW South Coast are the hot spots.

The season runs from August to January. This year it started early: Sydney vets had passed last season's case count before spring had even begun.

The part nobody tells you: it can't see you

A tick doesn't hunt. It climbs to the tip of a blade of grass, holds its front legs out, and waits.

On those legs sits a sensory pit called the Haller's organ. It reads the carbon dioxide in your breath, the heat coming off your skin, the humidity and the vibration of your footsteps — from metres away. When you brush past, it simply steps aboard. You never feel it.

That is the signal every tick uses to find a host. It is also the signal a new class of small ultrasonic repellers is designed to interfere with.

How to prepare for a bush walk in tick-prone areas

The standard advice hasn't changed, and nothing on this page replaces it:

• Wear long sleeves, long pants and socks
• Tuck pants into socks
• Use a repellent on exposed skin
• Stay on cleared tracks and avoid brushing through long grass
• Check everyone afterwards — hairline, behind the ears, armpits, waistband, behind the knees — and the dog
• Carry an ether-based freeze spray if you walk in tick country

If you find an adult tick, freeze it with an ether-based spray from any chemist (the wart-freeze type), wait, and let it drop off. Don't squeeze it with household tweezers — that pushes more of the tick's saliva into you. For larval clusters, a permethrin cream from the chemist beats fingernails. Trouble breathing, swelling, or a wobbly dog: call 000 or the vet.

The gap: the dog's covered, you're not

Here's what bothered us. The dog is on the vet's prevention — keep it that way. But there's nothing on you, nothing on the kids, and you're all walking through the same grass.

The clip pictured below is a small, chemical-free pod that hooks onto a collar, a school bag, a pram or a belt loop. It emits a silent ultrasonic pulse designed to interfere with the signal ticks and mosquitoes use to find you, so you're harder to find. No spray, no smell, nothing on anyone's skin, nothing to reapply, and nothing the dog can lick off you.

It is not a force field, and nobody should sell it as one. Keep doing the check. The idea is that you should find fewer.

Imported versions sell for $39.95 and up. Wombat Haul, an Aussie-owned outfit, has dropped it to $12.95 for the first batch under what it calls its Outdoor Safety Initiative — roughly what one costs to land. Shipping is a flat $8.99 whether you order one clip or five, which is why most people grab the 3-pack or 5-pack.

RELATED: Where to get the clip — $12.95, 3 for $25.90, 5 for $38.85 →

Fair questions, straight answers

What buyers say

The season runs to January. If you walk, camp, garden or own a dog on the east coast, do the check — and put something on the people.

Michelle's story was first reported by Yahoo News Australia. For more on ticks, allergies and first aid, see the Australasian Society of Clinical Immunology and Allergy and healthdirect.

This is a sponsored article by Wombat Haul. The repeller is designed to make you harder for ticks and mosquitoes to find; it does not prevent bites or tick-borne illness and is not a substitute for vet-recommended prevention, repellent or tick checks. © 2026 Wombat Haul.