Land Rover Camping: Safari Tent…

Posted June 1st 2010 at 11:44 am by kevin

The options for Land Rover Camping are endless of course, but a few designs are of special interest:

The OzTent from http://uk.oztent.com…

The OZ Tent - collapsible framed tent

the CaranEx… (see ukcampsite.co.uk/tents/ )

The CaranEx as Land Rover Tent - shown with Defender 110 CSW

and of course Roof Tents:

Australian Land Rover Roof Tent

There’s a new option from specialist tent, tipi and tarp manufacturer “Green Outdoor” called the “Campfire Tent”. It has some advantages over the Oztent (won’t fit in a 90 when folded down at 2M – won’t even fit on most 90 roofracks except diagonally which takes up a lot of space) and the CaranEx (lacking in features and still fairly expensive) and Roof Tent (hugely expensive and can’t be used as free-standing tents, also they take up all the roofrack space generally. I’ve been testing the Green outdoor offering and am enormously impressed – at £499 (currently on sale) it’s well worth looking at as it makes a fantastic Land rover tent as well as a perfect “safari-style” free standing tent. You can even pitch it in front of the campfire (hence the name) and have the heat reflect around the tent for maximium warmth as well as that true “fireside” experience.

The front opens out to give you wide open views of whatever country you’ve driven so hard to get to, whether it be Morrocan mountains, the African Savanna or the Welsh hills. The tent is very well featured in terms of doors, windows, full mozzie netting, full inner tent, as well as a modular design in terms of side wings, front awning etc. On top of that, and the killer feature for me is that it’s cleverly made out of natural materials – Chinese Hemp Cotton canvas specifically, in a beautiful soft brown colour that at the same time both stands out and blends in with Nature. The material is also waterproofed so the canvas can remain thinner than traditional cotton canvas, and therefore it’s doesn’t have that heavy weight, especially when wet that puts so many people off canvas traditional tents. But it retains the look (and feel, and even the sound) of classic “safari tents” of old, and that really adds something to the experience when you’re out in the bush.

Here’s some pictures of the tent set up with my Land Rover 110 HCPU, where it fits perfectly at the rear of the vehicle, allowing easy access through rear, with use of the tailgate for kitchen duties, and yet you can drive off easily and close the front of the tent up, or move the vehicle during the day and shelter form either the sun or rain under the big awning. Side doors and wings zip on or off easily making it very flexible. You can of course put the tent side-on to the vehicle as well.

I’ll be using this set up a lot now as it’s proved perhaps the perfect 4×4 tent, with some real advantages over the other options, and at a very reasonable price you get something unusual, fit for purpose and really a thing of great beauty, as well as a solid piece of gear that will last a lifetime or close to hopefully. So, in short, I’m impressed!

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The Tent with one side-wing zipped off, showing the inner tent and mozzie net etc.

The side wing left on, with the side door and mozzie net zipped open.

The side doors also have a ventilation flap which can be opened slightly for air, OR rolled up as a full window - very nice feature and the attention to detail is very high, as is the manufacturing quality.

A view into the interior space and inner tent.

Tailgate Kitchen!!

The Campfire...

The awning fits snugly over the top of the 110 HCPU pickup - it is the right height for most landrovers, and has a single centre guy rope which secures the awning to the vehicle.