[striker99]

The thermarest matress have which is a full size ultralite one that i use to use primarily for hiking... it was always painful to get exactly the right amount of air in them, tended to be uncomfortable to sleep on, and always had to be so careful because the matress was so thin.

[pete_79]

DarkHorse wrote:

How robust/sturdy are they? Price and source?

Been thinking about something similar.

After testing them out on a trip to Newnes over the weekend I can say we are very happy with them!

They felt super sturdy, they're rated to about 160kg. Little bit squeaky when moving around in them, but not loud enough to be annoying.
We used our Thermarest self inflating mattresses on top of the cot, but that was more just for insulation.

All Australian suppliers where sold out when we bought ours, but the large size that we got retail for about $350-$400 locally.
We ended up getting ours from an eBay seller in the USA for US$250 (A$360 inc delivery).

On a side note, eBay international freight is a joke. UPS delivered these items halfway across the USA in 3 days, then flew them over here in 2 days. But after clearing customs, it took 5 days to go 30kms from Sydney airport to my house.

[shakes]

I realy don't see the point in a cot unless your in flood country or need to stay clear of critters that eat you.
My current set up... Bike/moto/hike/car

Custom terra Rosa ground sheet
Exped UL7m mat,
S2S pillow
Enlightened equipment revelation quilt
Terra Rosa tarp.

All up weighs about 1.5kg give or take, packs into a 13L drybag. And is comfy to about -2. Haven't tested in a serious storm yet. Good in light-medium rain and wind.
Also need to find a mozzie net for when leeches are on the prowl or the areas are mozzie infested.

[pete_79]

Yes that does look like a good little set up for a single guy on a bike.
Couldn't see the misses and 2 kids under 6 years old sleeping for a week in there.

That's my need for the cots.
Our family tent is 3m X 3m, we pretty much only go bush camping and often go for 5 nights or more.

Trying to find a perfectly flat 3m X 3m square in the bush is pretty difficult. With the cots we can now set up on fairly uneven ground and only need a small flat are for the kids to use with their self inflating mattresses.

We've done 5 or 6 trips with our little Thermarest cots now and we're super happy with them.

I'm happy to recommend them to anyone who's looking at them.

[DMAC]

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My hammock setup. If I was travelling light I'd lose the ground sheet and one of the flys depending on weather outlook, and table.
Spent 8 days at Fraser in it. I was surprised how comfortable it was I was even able to lie on my side.

[smiley_666]

I've been using a new tent for a couple fo trips recently, and i'm happy with it. Its a vango pulsar 300. Easy and pretty quick to set up, nice and warm - was bloody cold for SA the first night i tryed it haha, and packs up smallish- thing half a regular folding chair bag, but squishy.
Have used a couple of denali tube mats from anaconda, i'm happy with mine, but the missus was happier when she had my 3/4 mat as well.
Would love to get a cot, but the thing is pushing the sleeping space as it is - my 6'4" only just squeezes in the sleeping compartment.
Just need to sort out the zook and take it somewhere interesting, the missus's subaru can only go so far

Here's one from the most recent trip at a campsite near Blanchtown right on the river. It took 1/4 the time to set up as the awning on the camper trailer

[shakes]

pete_79 wrote:

Yes that does look like a good little set up for a single guy on a bike.
Couldn't see the misses and 2 kids under 6 years old sleeping for a week in there.

That's my need for the cots.
Our family tent is 3m X 3m, we pretty much only go bush camping and often go for 5 nights or more.

Trying to find a perfectly flat 3m X 3m square in the bush is pretty difficult. With the cots we can now set up on fairly uneven ground and only need a small flat are for the kids to use with their self inflating mattresses.

We've done 5 or 6 trips with our little Thermarest cots now and we're super happy with them.

I'm happy to recommend them to anyone who's looking at them.

Awesome.

Family set up is an oztent RV4. And an 6x10m tarp if the weather is bad... Still using similar mats. A good inflatable mat is pretty comfy on lumpy ground.
Only run a tent with the pet monkey as I'm paranoid about her wandering off in the middle of the night, I'd also hate myself if a leech or tick or similar went to town on her during the night.

We only bush/free camp to. Rate the oztent as an easy family tent with space. Only thing that's annoying is its a bit of weight to loft onto the roof rack.

[pete_79]

Thought I'd share this just 'cause it's something a little different. And I'm a bit bored tonight.

A bit of background;
We're a family of 4 and we camp a LOT, we've had 59 nights in a tent so far this year and have planned another 5 or 6 nights camping before Christmas. So we figure we can justify having a bit of a selection in our gear.

We have a Blackwolf 300 canvas Turbo tent for touring and we love it. But at 1400mm long when packed and weighing in at a bit over 35kg (plus a bit more for the shade cloth flooring and additional side panels) it's not that easy to travel with all the time.

So we also have a family dome tent option if we need it. We had a Blackwolf Mojave SG4 for a few years. It was alright, but not really the tent for us and recently sold it.

We searched for ages looking for a replacement dome tent, scanning the web and checking every tent display we could find.
Basically we wanted a low profile dome with good sloping walls and a solid frame design that could handle being pitched on top of the dunes at the beach with howling on shore winds or that could take on a good afternoon storm out in the bush.

What we found was that the family dome tent market in Australia is actually pretty shit. It's either the standard 2.4m X 2.4m X 2m high dome or those f....ing huge things, with 2 or 3 rooms that can only be used in caravan parks, in perfect weather, with no wind and assembled by a team of engineers.

But eventually we found something a bit different and thought it was worth giving it a go.
The Kiwi's out there will know the Freedom-Zempire brand, but they are just starting to be released here in Aus now http://zempire.com.au/tents.

We got the Drift model and bought it direct out of NZ, from what I've seen there are no Aus stores selling these yet, but there are quite a few stocking the canvas tents (that look pretty good if you're in the market for a big canvas tent) and the entry level dome tents (probably because those dome tents fit in with the rest of the same/same in our shitty market).

Anyway, the Drift has a little bit bigger footprint then we wanted, but it ticks pretty much all the other boxes, we really like the styling and I think we can live with the extra meter or so of space.

First impressions out of the box where pretty good, nice tough carry bag with solid buckles to wrap it tight (there's also a set of straps with steel buckles to go around the tent before you out it in the bag).



Me and the misses had it up in a few minutes. It's a single skin design (one of the main things we liked). So it's just thread the poles with the tent on the floor, peg the corners, then with one person in the middle to lift the center and the other going around clipping the poles on the pins in the corners. I recon after a couple of goes we could have this up nearly a quick as the Turbo tent.
Done.







Inside it has a removable 'pod' that essentially makes the standard inner skin on other tents that you would normally pitch first then put the fly over.
So with this tent you basically pitch the fly first and the inner skin goes up inside at the same time.





We didn't want a 2 room tent and prefer the single big open space, so we removed the 'pod'.




The other feature we liked was the removable roof giving full sky views on clear nights.



The view from laying in bed.



We'll give it the first bush test next weekend, but there where no leaks from a absolute blasting with the hose in the yard, it has a 5000mm water head rating (that's equivalent to the canvas Turbo tent) so it shouldn't leak.
There's lots of handy little features and all materials are really good quality. The pressed alloy tensioners are a good example of that.



Anyway, just thought I'd share.

[Samurai81]

Hi Pete,
Good to know some of our outdoor stuff is appreciated in the far north. I visited their site and recognised the location of the main photo. I've just finished running a dive course at exactly that site and thought
you'd like to see a couple of photos of a good Oztent in action. Easy to transport in the large van and so quick to pitch. Not so useful with a Zook.
Steve.

[pete_79]

Ha, Ha. Classic, good to see the Oz-NZ tent trade agreement is going well.

Looks like a great spot for a dive too. Thanks for sharing.