Fair Chase - Back to basics tenting

The Oz tent and a couple of trout – back to basics camping.

Cameron with dinner.

The writer with a nice Ahuriri trout.

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With a recession casting a pall of despondency over the country, it should come as no surprise that lots of holidaymakers resurrected the tent from the depths of their garages this summer.

Apparently, good old-fashioned camping and tenting was the accommodation of necessity for many Kiwi families. Nothing wrong with that, and a bout of hot weather over Xmas and New Year rewarded those who visited the lakes, rivers and beaches, and roasted marshmallows over the cooking flames.

One downside of tenting, however, particularly touring tenting (which is what lots of fishing and hunting trips are), is the sheer amount of time required to turn a heap of packed canvas into a home away from home. And getting the new home back into its bag at trip’s end can be nearly as stressful. Small wonder anglers and hunters who tend to sleep no more than one night per spot don’t want awkward tents.

A week before Xmas I had an opportunity to test a new form of tent introduced to New Zealand from across the ditch in Australia. It’s called the Oz Tent, and is nicknamed ‘the 30-second tent’ because it is designed to be erected instantly and easily, and particularly suits the touring camper. There are five tent sizes in the range, each one accommodating increasingly larger numbers of people.

This tent is different from others in that the tent base is maintained within the bag it comes in. When erecting it, the tent is released from its long bag and simply raised straight up using the aluminium arms that, once up, lock the tent’s sides solid. A few pegs in all the right places and, hey presto, you have a comfortable home in under five minutes. (Rather than carry on sounding like a salesman though, I suggest readers check out the website http://nz.oztent.com/ to see exactly how it works.)

My field test involved three locations, spread over three activities, encompassing six days. On day one my mate Cameron and I travelled from Christchurch to Omarama, and booked into the local Top 10 Holiday Park there.

Out came the Oz Tent for me, while Cameron had a conventional tent. The blurb told the truth, and I got to watch Cameron putting up his tent from the luxury of my quickly erected Oz Tent.
The Oz Tent isn’t the prettiest tent out there, looking a little like a half-tent, but it is just so functional. It rained that night, and yep it was waterproof, so two ticks in the positive boxes.

Braving the wet conditions, we headed up the Ahuriri River and put in long day spin-fishing. This is a magical river set amongst some of New Zealand’s most spectacular alpine scenery. The trout, both rainbow and brown, are wary, can be fussy, and are often hard to catch, but the quality of the specimens makes the effort worthwhile. I landed a 2kg rainbow in the morning, and another rainbow and brown trout of similar size in the afternoon, while Cameron did it harder and missed out.

It took only minutes to drop the Oz Tent the following morning, and two hours later we were erecting it again just outside Tekapo on a farmer’s sheep station. This is the strength of a touring tent over a larger tent, which is usually erected just once and then taken home. Our target activity here was some bunny shooting on the farm and trout fishing in the Tekapo River.

As dusk approached the rabbits began to appear, and just before dark we managed to clean up 30 between us. That evening a thunder and lightning squall blew through, putting the tent under more intensive scrutiny, buffeting it severely and dumping more rain on it. I was forced to drop the porch awning or risk having it ripped away, though the aluminium side arms enabled the basic structure to maintain stability. This ability to batten down the hatches in a blow is very useful.

The next morning dawned fine, so after cleaning up a few more rabbits we headed away for some fishing in Tekapo River. It was a good day for both of us, and in addition to numerous tiddlers, we landed three good trout each and lost a couple of others.

That evening some more rabbits met their maker, and the next day we were on our way again.
The final activity had been purposefully left to last. We were hoping to secure a deer near Fairlie, so if successful, the meat wouldn’t spoil.

The property we were on had a small cabin, so Cameron was happy to avoid having to erect his tent a third time. The Oz Tent was so simple in this regard I was happy to erect it again.
That night, as we sat outside, two wallabies came hopping along a bench above us, so they become our first successes. Cameron later shot another one and I cleaned up a couple of hares.
The next day was wet in the morning, but cleared afterwards, so we were able to go deer stalking in the evening.

In the first valley we saw two fallow deer and, after a long stalk, were able to shoot one that hung around longer than it should have. With the venison supply taken care of, we stalked a second valley, spooked two more deer, and shot a couple of wallabies on the way back down the hill.
A good night’s sleep, then it was pack-up time and off back to Christchurch.

This sort of touring trip is exactly what the Oz Tent excels at: multiple activities involving a lot of quick tent erection and dismantling. The only problem I could see facing some campers is that the tent bag itself is quite big, so prospective owners need to factor in that they will need a roof-rack, long vehicle or trailer to carry it. But its bag is also the reason it erects so quickly.
I am looking forward to its next adventure.  

Next issue: big country – the Hawkdun Range.