Setting up tent

June 2010 - school holiday- week 2.
I decided to finally try it and prepared the kids . If we could succeed to set it up, that huge tent , we would stay the night. If not we would just make it a day at the beach and go home for the night.

UNFORTUNATELY, while I remembered to pack almost everything, I forgot the camera. And being overly busy with the business of the camping forgot I could have used my phone cam for that special snapshot of a probably never-to-try again experience.

We managed to get it up and set, between Alx(no 1) and me. I had to hoist Alr (no 2) up some (no mean feat that) so he could attempt to to tie the top most center (where the 2 frames crisscrossed). The tent was tall. We anchored all the pegs to all corners and edges, tossed and installed the rainfly and 'presto' (not) it was done.  It was supposed to be a 6 man tent, unfortunately that did not include space for luggage!.

The first day right up to dinner was not too bad I have to say, the weather was not at it's usual roasting temperature but it sort of tittered on the edge of a really mild mild drizzle on and off. Then after that we had to huddle in the tent when the rain got heavier. Stayed that way through most of the early morning. We had a friend and her son join us for the day, so that would have made six of us in the tent. But sometime around 1am, they decided to leave for the sake of comfort all round and get back to the comfort of their own dry, soft bed at their own home which was not too far from the beach.
The rain stopped a while in the morning the next day, enough to let us walk to breakfast and back  - favourite Macs breakfast never fails to please and just after that, the weather went a little sour again.

We also had a rather noisy bunch of teenagers who set up 5 tents close to us later that first evening, they had the whole wide East Coast park area to select and they decided to park themselves so near us. They made noise for half the night and packed up by 9am the next morning.

But I think the kids had managed to pull out all the activity they could for that whole day that we were there. They managed to get into the water, ride a bicycle, get in a night walk looking at and catching baby crabs by torch light, picking shell and shale, all in all, I think it was a successful campaign attempt inspite of the weather. Using a torch light in the dark of night of course is another thrill for the kids.

In the morning when the rain started again, we all had had enough of huddling in the tent, we decided we would pack it up earlier than planned.  The wind had reduced the efficacy of the rainfly, so the sides of the tent were damp and we had little leaks at the side, but still not that bad.

Why do I say I will not repeat it again ever (I think), because the packing up of the canvasses was quite an exercise and then getting home, getting them (camp stuff) cleaned, sunned and packed again ... well that was the exercise for the week and my back.

Memorable indeed.