Monique Devereux: Northland is beckoning - not

As is tradition, my fiance has been charged with organising our honeymoon.

And although I am hoping to board a plane to Cuba, Disneyland or some five- star tropical island resort, I have a sneaking suspicion he's thinking Northland.

Which may not be a very good start to our wedded bliss.

I've been to Northland before and it was not the holiday of a lifetime.

It was quite a few years ago and I think it was probably my idea, although I would have been thinking of cute bed and breakfasts, not a smelly old canvas tent.

And so the camping trip started: me, the long-since former boyfriend, the golf clubs, which I saw him pack into the car, and the tent, which I did not.

The bloke concerned knew I had an aversion to camping but must have thought I was just kidding when I said I'd rather sleep in a car than in canvas.

I didn't quite get to prove it at the first stop.

Thank goodness for summer rainstorms - after a small "discussion" the bloke agreed that pitching the canvas in the mud puddles would not be conducive to a happy holiday.

Instead we listened to the rain hammer the roof of our leaky cabin all night. But the fun was just beginning.

We progressed further north, past museums featuring wood and big trees, catching the Rawene ferry across the quiet harbour, and finally reaching the Far North.

Ninety Mile Beach beckoned but, not being organised enough to get us on to a proper bus tour, the bloke decided we would park on the side of the road and walk across the dunes to the beach itself.

Hours of walking in the stifling Far North heat later, we turned back. I still haven't seen Ninety Mile Beach.

And on to Cape Reinga. Indeed a highlight. But happiness was fleeting.

He pitched the canvas in a small bay, the name of which has been removed from memory and replaced with "Mosquito".

I knew the mozzies would be there. I just didn't know that they would be the size of small bees and only travel in swarms of 5000.

While he slept peacefully, the constant buzzing noise at night kept me awake. I fought not to scream out loud, consoling myself with the thought that they could not devour me through the canvas.

But I could not contain my horror after I stretched my arm up into the triangular top of the tent only to feel hundreds of mozzies latching on to my arm.

I was outside and into the sea as fast as I could run. I shivered myself to sleep on the beach that night.

In between practising his golf swing, the bloke did a sterling job of hosing out the tent the next day. And it was almost dry by the time it came to get back in.

I had to lie perfectly still so as not to disturb or remove any of the thick layer of mozzie repellent I had covered myself in from toe to hairline.

But the mozzies had tasted blood and knew I was fair game.

I limped out of Mosquito Bay with war wounds - about 100 bites to each leg, 50 on each arm, another 50 on my back and several on my face, each one an angry red colour and swollen to the size of a five-cent piece.

We progressed a smidgeon south to another bay, another camping spot.

Just 50m away from our pitching spot was a concrete sewage treatment enclosure. Its constant hum did not lull us to sleep, nor did its overpowering stench.

The overflow that left the ground around our tent boggy and brown was not a delightful discovery the next morning.

I could not stand another minute. The five-hour drive home in a hot car with no air conditioning was a small price to pay for getting out of Northland. I almost needed a holiday to recover.