overland-rovers.com

Days to go : 33

This weekend we travelled over to the Land Rover Max Show at Stoneleigh.

It was our first real trial of the rooftent, awning and storage layout.

The weather was pretty awful.  it was blowing a gale and raining on and off.  Although not very conducive to camping it did allow a good test of the kit.

The first problem arose when we opened the tent and found that the mattress was soaking and the sheets that Janet (my sister) had made had mould on them.

We managed to dry them out a bit but it was a damp and cold night.

The next day we bought a mattress cover from Trek Overland (at the same time I picked up a new tent cover that I had ordered.  This night was much better with a dry mattress and sheets we had managed to dry thoroughly in the (small amount of) sun.  Despite being freezing we had a comfortable night.  We have some mods to make to the ladder and we will have to thoroughly wash the sheets to remove the mould but other than that the next time we sleep in the tent will be in Tunisia.

Whilst it was up I took the opportunity to add some 1" tape to act as a handhold in the tent.  I will write more about this in a complete article about the tent.

The awning withstood torrential rain and some pretty strong winds.  We discovered that the three sides are still too long and couldn't be fitted all together, however they did make very good wind breaks when zipped apart.

The car ran faultlessly and we are now getting more and more confident with it.

We also met with Peter, our guide from Atlas Overland and had a chance to chat about the upcoming trip.

We got back home today feeling a bit weary, having been damp and cold for most of the weekend.  However it was very worthwhile.

The show itself was quite small but could grow into something good so long as they don't move it again next year.

We also met up a lovely couple, Chris and Dee, who had completed the 2010 Help for Heroes European Rally.  They convinced us to register for the 2011 event so we shall be sending off our application in the next few days and starting some serious fundraising once we have the info back.  I shall add more detail of this later but you can find out more here.