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Evening all.

Just bought a Coleman Darwin 5 Tent and wondered if anyone out there had any tips on how best to put it up?  Sure that the instructions on the bag are wrong? We have put it up twice but feel there must be a better way to do it - Any advice greatly appreciated.  Fantastic tent by the way...once up!

Thank you. DW

We've just replaced our so called 'Easy up' Darwin with an Outwell Vermont.  I'm afraid that I have to paraphrase Jim Royale when it comes to pitching the Darwin 'Easy up my a***'  So this is how we used to do it!!

We start by removing the bedrooms as they make it too heavy to get upright.  Then we peg out the four corners loosely.  The instructions tell you what order to put the poles in the sleeves. From memory, we started at the back, working forwards and did the red poles last.  This is just putting the poles in the sleeves and not tensioning them until they are all in.  We always had quite a struggle getting the poles into the sleeves (especially the red ones as the sleeves are curved).  Starting from the back again we fix the poles into the rings, again finishing with the reds.  Unfortunately, we found that as you are fixing the poles into the rings, and the tent is flapping slightly, the poles start to wriggle out of the sleeves so you end up having to push then back into place. Once all the poles are sorted,  OH clambers inside whilst me and the 2 kids try to not fly the worlds biggest box kite!!! (This is where the intial pegs come in handy!)  Lifting the whole thing upright is so much easier if you take the bed pods out.  Finish off with pegging out and putting the bed pods back in.  To be honest, we've always found it a struggle to put up but liked the space and design (especially the storage at the back). Usually we have half the campsite watching us and having a really good laugh at us fighting a load of ripstop nylon and fibre glass poles. Have to say though I'm looking forward to pitching the Vermont - it so much easier than the Darwin.  Good luck with yours and happy camping.

It's not easy the first few times, but now I can do it single handedly and I'm a 5'4" girlie! Here's what I do:

Put a few pegs in the groundsheet to keep it stable. Put the silver (longest) pole in first. Put the pole in the eyelet. Go to the back of the tent and pull it up with 2 guy ropes and peg these out to keep it up (if you have a second person to go inside the tent to push it up from the inside at this stage, it makes it easier). Then put the poles in the following order: yellow (back), green, red side poles, blue, black, so you are working from the back forwards. OH does it differently and puts all the poles in flat on the ground first, then puts them in the eyelets (like scarymamma describes above) but I don't have the strength to pull it up with all the poles in so put each pole in it's eyelet as I'm going along. I can do it by myself, including pegging it all out, in just under an hour. With two of us it takes around 35-40 mins.

We always take the bedrooms out because it's far too heavy otherwise. Also, make sure all flaps and doors are zipped shut.

Once you get the hang of it, it's a fabulous tent!