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As new campers,my wife and I have just bought a Wild Country Homestead 7,and have just had a go at setting it up in our friends back garden. I have to say that the instructions were absolutely awful,and I ended up more than a bit frustrated at having to fumble my way through, though we sort of got there in the end.

Does anyone have any tips on setting one up, have we bought a good tent etc? Any advice would be very welcome.

Many thanks, Debbie. Looking forward to trying it out for real next week.

Cheers 

We have the Homestead 10 and it is fairly easy to erect.  I am sure the instructions were quite comprehensive..... I will see if I can find them in a bit.

And I would say you have made an excellent choice of tent.... we have used ours for over 3 years now and we are still really pleased with it..... taking it to Cornwall this summer.

Hi Gerrie

INSTRUCTIONS!!! We never got instructions with our Homestead 7, from memory we got a diagram of what it looked like once up and pitched correctly.

However once you've mastered it, pitching isn't that difficult - I think - we're still mastering the art and this is our third year and pitched it six times on campsite, twice in the garden. We do love our big blue slug that although doesn't look as pretty as some has a lot of good points, In fact the only thing I'd like is a better entrance in the rain but that would spoil the slick shape that makes me feel it would stand up to a fair amount of bad weather.

I think it's each to there own when it comes to pitching a tent but this is roughly how we do it in case it helps you.

Main rules as I see them with the homestead - The first good pitch will be a great help for any future pitches. Get it up and peg it roughly and then tweak and more tweeking then peg it down tight.

So this is what we do - roughly

1. Lay out flysheet folded in two length wise

2. (if windy) peg down one of the main guyroges at one end of the tent (anchor)

3. Get all poles together and then push them though into the flysheet, they are all the same so you don't need to worry about mixing them up.Don't clip them at this stage.

4. Then the two man bit - genty lift the two middle sets of pole into an upright postion.

5. One man holds these two poles until stage 8 (best for a the person who has the longest arm span). Second person locates the four ends of the poles into the eyelets on the ground straps.

6. Next do the same for the two outer sets of poles angling them correctly away from the middle poles. (you may need to losen/tighten the guyrope you pegged at stage 2)

7. Peg the other main guyrope at the other end of the tent, making sure that the spacing beween the poles keeps the tent roughly in shape.

8. Breathe - unless very windy you tent shouldn't go anywhere, if windy peg down the straps the poles go into, we always put the poles in the inner holes and peg the outer holes on the straps.

9. Now you need to make sure you tent is 'square'. By moving the four sets of poles you can straighten up your tent. It’s best to avoid to much pegging down until you are happy with the way it sits, every site will be different. Basically you we know if it’s twisted or not square when you peg out the ends of the tent. It should be a rectangle with the corner chamfered at 45 degs. Looking at the end of the tent – middle thee pegs straight across, next peg either side takes the tent in by 45 degs, then straight (roughly straight) down the length of the tent. Also, there should be slight fold lines up the tent where the 45 deg pegging is. If the flysheet looks smooth at any one of these points (around the bedroom areas) the flysheet may touch the inner – which is ok as long as it doesn’t rain!

So try a bit of loose pegging out to get you tent straight.

10. Now (only ready needed on your first pitch) put the inners up. If the tent seems too tall for the inner (the elastic is stretched too much) pull the legs of the tent out a bit and loosen off the ground straps. Again if the tent seems to low or wide, pull the legs in and tighten the straps. P.S. we always put our ground straps on top of the grounds sheets to keep them clean and therefore when packed away keep the flysheet from getting mud off them. And put a rug down over the exposed one in the sitting area.

11. Now you’ve made the tweaks needed, peg the whole lot down. It’s easier to peg the inners down from outside the tent so peg them down and the groundsheets down first and then peg down the flysheet.

12. don’t forget to peg down the eyelets on the ground straps.

13. peg down the guy ropes, although we don’t bother if it not going to be windy.

Sorry long winded but hopefully it may help.

Happy camping in your Homestead

Roo

Gerry if you look at our photos on my gallery you'll see how NOT to pitch it, top one - my first pitch in the garden you can see it a bit wobbly on the left. Bottom picture - very windy site was difficult to pitch the 45 deg angle is smooth with no slight crease. We are getting better but it is a tent that you grow with and learn something new each time you put it up.

Happy camping,

We too are off to Carnwall in the summer with ours - can't wait. We don't do Easter with the kids in tow so Whit's been our only camp this year.

Roo

I knew they were somewhere - I finally found the instructions!!  It is actually a little booklet which has instructions for the Wild Country Discovery, Pursuit and Family & Group Ranges.  Homestead 7 instructions as follows:

1 Assemble 4 curved and 8 short straight poles.  At this stage keep the curved and straight poles separate.

2 Spread out flysheet with black pole sleeves uppermost.

3 Insert curved poles into black pole sleeves.  Any curved pole can be used in any sleeve.

4 Fit a short straight pole onto either end of each curved pole.

5 Grouping all 4 complete poles together, raise to vertical and loosely peg out one end of the flysheet.

6 Carefully move the poles apart and loosely peg out the other end of the flysheet.

7 Locate eyelets over ends of poles.

8 Re-peg flysheet to ensure fabric is tight.  Attach black hooks around straight poles.

9 Unwrap the inner tents, 1 large and 1 small.

10 For each inner put the coloured elastic hanger/toggle through the eyelet with the same colour on the inside of the flysheet.  Note: where there are two inners together the coloured elastic from each will cross over.

11. Peg out inner tents.

12. Peg out separate groundsheets

13. Peg out guylines.

Each tent has:

     Pegs: 92

     Poles: 4 curved, 8 short straight, 2 long straight porch poles.

Hope this is of some help.

The Wild Country method as given by Shirlandy works fine. Like all large tents (small ones too), it always takes a bit of tweaking to get it set out just how you like it, but it's worth it as it's a good strong tent with loads of space.

Cheers.

JohnR