Hi job, thank you for showing me the way. My progress has only happened because of the guidance I receive, some of it has been harsh but necessary and some of it gentle encouragement, I am lucky to have so many that care about me.
My tent - my first thought was to how I was going to put the tent up on my own, so I looked at different size tents and could see that the size of tent I could handle was not the size of tent I would like. So that lead me to google "how to put a tent up on your own" which lead to Pop Up Tents. Not a new concept, but finding a pop up tent that was able to cope in all weathers and not just a kiddies backyard play tent was not easy to find. Within a blog I was reading the tent I have now purchased came up as a "new innovation in pop up tents" it was born in the UK.
The website backs new concepts, the public pledge money - you buy a tent but you dont get it until enough money is raised to put in into production - and the design hopefully gets enough backing to see it become reality. In 2014 the tent did become reality and feedback from its customers has seen a second generation tent be released, the same idea with pledges to put the tent in to production. This is the tent I pledged too and got told last week that after another overhaul it has gone in to production and Australia and New Zealand will be the first in the world to get the new design, followed by the UK and USA.
The tent I will be getting is a 4 man tent (shown by how many surfboards can be fit in the main sleeping area lol), it is a pop up tent but with a double skin so condensation and rain is not a problem, this is an unusual feature for a pop up. It consits of a 1.4m high main bedroom and then each end has a smaller vestibule to store belongings (the idea is at a festival you can store your muddy clothes one end and still have a clean end to get in and out of the tent), the whole tent opens up to one big tent or can be closed to 3 sections. The whole inner tents has mossie nets and full cover options.
This is where is becomes special. It has a solar power panel and a removable battery pack to charge phones and devices (important to me as a woman alone to be in communication if I should need it and to charge my phone so I can take lots of photos of my adventures). The tent peg on each corner of the tent has a LED light inside it to light the tent outside at night, two torches that turn into lanterns for inside the tent, glow in the dark guy ropes, it is rainproof to 4000hh which is 3 times the recommended amount,a bathtub groundsheet that stops any water coming in and a heat reflective cover that in summer keeps the tent cool and turned over it keeps the tent warm in winter, it also acts a blackout to the sleeping area so bright early sun does not wake you up.
The best bit of all - the record for putting in down is 1 minute !! I will be happy with 30 mins lol.
So I am very excited and looking forward to receiving my tent. I have to get past being nervous going camping on my own - or for that matter, just going away on my own - does not help when everyone says to me "ooh how brave, I could not do it", but I dont see why its acceptable for a family, or a couple or even a man to go away on his own, so why is a woman going camping alone such a big deal?
