Packed the van in the rain. Drive through floods. Awning split an air beam at 6.5psi. 12 months old. Fair play to Vango though, as a replacement is on its way to the campsite, free of charge! Can’t say fairer than that.
Last summer we left in the afternoon the day before we were due to leave, forecast was rain for the morning , forecast was correct. I cant be bothered getting it all out to dry it ...
There have been times, like being smacked in the face repeatedly by a rapid-folding dome tent once in a thunderstorm in France. .. but we were in Foix, nearly in Andorra when it happened. At least we didnt put our tent by the wall at the bottom of the field where the rain then filled our friends' tent up. For that we had to wait until Barcelona when our tent finally flooded on a hillside in a thunderstorm. Sleeping in a Ford Fiesta is even worse than a wet tent maybe.. But it was worth it to see the Picasso museum , the Sagrada Familia, be unsuccessfully pickpocketed in Las Ramblas subway station by a kid who felt the ham radio VHF on my belt (bought in Andorra tax-free bazaar) , thought I was undercover police and nearly wet himself running away, falling over backwards.., and then the Dali Museum a bit further north on the way back.
Now a video of being smacked in the face by a tent would be quite amusing to see, not funny at the time but......
I got flattened by our old frame tent at Mortoe Farm campsite I hate Campervans! *MOTs of Campervans anyway.
Ok mate I've got the rope from your awning here ,I can't hold on anymore my arms have gone numb in the cold rain , you can take over now your back ,said the bloke who was stopping our awning blowing away in the gale as we arrived back at a camp site in Anglesey
Pre-kids we used to camp pretty regularly at Lobb Fields in Braunton. Few hours on the beach first thing then all afternoon / evening in pubs in Braunton or Croyde. Got back one night, hammered, to find our headlights shining straight into someone’s tent. I obviously (hicupped) and apologised. Apparently they’d just switched themselves on several hours before!
Shame @1973daisey isn't there, he could have put one of his Carling tins under the corner of the van and drunk for free all night
I bought first van was after being flooded out in a frame tent. You're a bit stuffed in a tent in heavy rain. How I love to arrive in the van and have a coffee, cook a meal while the tenters struggle to assemble their weekend homes in the rain. Then just when they've got their tent up and all their kit soaked... the sun comes out.
It’s certainly fun and games camping at the moment, thunderstorms last night found a leaky tailgate seal I’ve got and damaged a friends tent, so they are now ‘car camping’ other than that we’re having a good birthday week camping at Hayling Island
Exactly! Throw away society. Our first frame tent my dad got off a cousin (not new), then we used it for my entire childhood, then I used it for ours for a few years and eventually when it split I made a sun awning for the van from the large porch bit! It lasted from 1968 to 1995-ish, almost 30 years and it got used a LOT when my parents had it. It had lightweight aluminium poles too - and a fringe on the porch that matched the westy pop-top fringe. Just better all round but not much use if you were a tent manufacturer I suppose. How many modern awnings/tents have you been through already?
