The Retreat 150
Karen and I have brought a new tent...it is the Retreat 150 from Kathmandu....it cost us $600 dollars when you took the club member savings into account. Added to this the tent was on sale with 40% off...
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| The Kathmandu Retreat 150 |
We found my Coleman tent was just too small for use. You couldn't stand up inside it and while it is fine for one person it just isn't going to cut the mustard for two people. The new tent is so much bigger and it can be configured so that you can spend some time inside on a foul weather day. You can stand upright in it.
I will use the Coleman for one man car camps.
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| Another view of the Retreat 150 |
Over the weekend we took it out to Waikuku to try it out and with the fine weather we are having it worked out to be a good weekend. I've never been to Waikuku Beach before...it reminded me of what Woodend was once like about 40 years ago.
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| The retreat 150 erected in Waikuku campground |
It took about an hour to set up...the time taken to erect the tent will become less as we get to know its particulars. We tried setting it up according to a video I had watched but we found it to be incorrect. No matter as we worked out the correct sequence to setting it up.
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| We have to work out the ends of the tent |
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| The Retreat 150 with all our gear inside |
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| Nice weather at Waikuku Beach |
After setting up the tent we had coffee made with my Windburner. We used it to boil water and cooked our main meal on the main cooker we had brought with us.
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| Boiling water on my Windburner stove |
The campsite at Waikuku is very nice. It is mostly occupied by people who live there all the time but does have some powered and unpowered sites that you can use. I would like to come back in January to see how busy it is...I imagine it gets busy at that time like every campsite does.
We took the opportunity with the fine weather of going down to the beach. It was cool even though it was 25 degrees because there was an incoming breeze of the ocean. The beach consists of the estuary and the beach proper.
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| The estuary at Waikuku Beach |
You are close to the mountains when you are at Waikuku and they dominate the horizon when you are on the beach. The typical view of the Port Hills was much smaller and consisted of a distant view of hills way off in the distance.
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| View of the foot hills from Waikuku Beach |
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| Distant Port Hills seen as a smudge on the horizon |
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| ..the campground was separate from the beach... |
The camp ground and the tent were just the ticket for us...the tent will look more taught the next time we set it up because we will know its peculiarities.
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| ...Karen adjusting the tent.. |
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| Waikuku campgrounds were mostly empty |
We had hamburgers for dinner (no photo) which turned out really well and bacon butty's for breakfast. I was surprised by how well they turned out so we will cook more of them in the future.
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| The tent sitting in the sun to dry |
The next morning we left the tent up to dry it in the sun. We broke the tent down in about half an hour because we were looking to stick it on the washing line to dry it.
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| Packing all of the gear in the car |
We look forward to using the tent more and hope to camp much more over the summer.
