New tent


Our new tent is up!  Throughout this year Nicola, Willow and I have been sleeping in a Green Tee from Vango.  It’s a great tent and has worked well for us.  But it was a bit small for the 3 of us and whilst I could stand in the middle, I had to bend over a lot of the time.

So we’ve put up a lavvu.  A lavvu is a kind of tipi used by the Sami.  Traditionally they used many poles, but the modern ones only have a single central pole.  Whilst I said that we’ve put up our new tent, it’s actually an old (ish) one; we used it for a short while a couple of years ago but it kept blowing down whenever the wind picked up.  The pegs supplied were rubbish so we replaced them with pegs we made ourselves, but the central pole wasn’t robust enough.  So we built our yurt instead.

At some point recently I wondered whether the lavvu would stay up if we got rid of the aluminium pole supplied and used a wooden one.  I had a good ash pole spare so gave it a try (it’s about 5″ diameter).  I’ve tapered one end down to the same size as the supplied pole, rounded it off, and buried it about 50cm into the ground.  I’ve used ash pegs and it all seems to be pretty sturdy!  new tent | bushcraft | south east

We’ve decided not to use a groundsheet as they only get dirty anyway.

new tent | bushcraft | south east

We’ve used a tarp at the front as a porch as we all prefer to sleep with the door open.

new tent | bushcraft | south east

 

Don’t forget, you can see plenty of photos of our camp, courses and students on our Facebook page.


About Gary

Lead Instructor at Jack Raven Bushcraft, teaching bushcraft, wilderness and survival skills to groups and individuals.

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