What works and what doesn’t for our family camping kit currently. Last minute trip out with friends to camp in Penmaenmawr, North Wales. It’s close by, we could travel there after work and setup with it still being light. We scraped around various pitch finding websites and found a lovely little place called Trwyn Yr Wylfa.
I hadn’t even looked at our camping kit since halfway through 2017 and just bunged whatever I could find into the trailer on the morning before we left. Our gear was total hit and miss and a bit more minimal. Here’s what we took from our first trip out, what worked and what didn’t.
Our Tent JUST about works for us
Our “new” Robens Klondike is improved.
At the end of last year our 2016 suffered a few leaks in bad weather but Robens and Taunton Leisure kindly replaced it. I’ve kind of half written an article on this tent but it’s not quite ready. The jist of it is, that this tent is our favourite tent we’ve used ever. Robens sent us a 2017 model, opposed to the 2016 we had. It’s got a few lovely new design features that have made a big difference.
- The Stove Port / Collar in the roof is now WAY easier to manipulate and peg in. I used to have all sorts of trouble getting it to cover the ventilation gaps. Now it feels like it fits better, easier to manipulate. I think it’s actually been improved again on the 2018 model.
- Robens have added really useful guy line retainers
- Guy lines now have metal locks on them, makes tightening and loosening easier
- Guy lines also now have moveable metal rings that you can peg directly into saving wear of the lines on the actual pegs.
- The A-Frame plastic cap, that we lost INSTANTLY previously, is on a strap retainer, it’s going nowhere!
We really like the Klondike, its quick to put up and pack down, strong but we struggle with the layout and keeping the place tidy / organised. Other than that we’ve fallen back in love with it.