Just bought a Mackenzie 8 to replace our Canyon 6.
Firstly, i can believe how big the bag is and how heavy, however, we are off camping in the New Forest next week and this will be our first attempt at putting it up (dont have a garden big enough to try it out, i realise this is a gamble) but can any fellow Mackenzie 8 users give me advice on how to put this tent up? also any feedback on the tent would be much appreciated.
Happy Camping
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Hi Finboy.... thanks for the reply and the more i think about it the more i feel we should try it out first.
I think i am going to take your advice and hope that the weather improves at the weekend and i can do a test pitch somewhere. We live in the cotswolds so finding a field or park should not be a problem.
I'll let you know how it goes and hopefully i can answer my own question and post tips on the best way to pitch.
We did a test pitch in the local field, people probably thought us to be a bit odd but never mind, all I cared about was atleast havign an idea as to how to pitch the tent before we took it anywhere!!
If you really cannot find the time or location to test pitch then atleast take everything out and check you have all the poles etc that it's meant to have before going.
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I did a test pitch of the same tent on Sunday, I've never pitched a tent of this size in my life and me & my wife pitched it (but not the guys) in 45 minutes, that included putting down a tarpaulin footprint, the only thing I got wrong was I didn't realise the main poles had different ends and I threaded my first one all the way through before realising I'd put the wrong end in first....
Over all I was very pleased with my first pitch, just realise I didnt put the sun porch up either but I estimate the whole exercise shouldn't take longer than an hour which for a large tent I don't think is too bad....
Any more questions please feel free
I love this tent.............
Danny
------------- To camp or not to camp, there is no question!!
hi just comeback from west norfolk where i pitched this tent with my 15 year old daughter for 1st time no problem great tent.Roll towards end door when folding to pack away
We did the same with our mackenzie 6 last weekend.
Like Danny said the poles have different ends, so make sure you thread the flat end in first...the far side of the sleeve has a dead end !
When pitching the canopy/porch, zip to the main tent before threading the poles through. The metal poles are for the front sleeve.
We found that there was a slight leak on the top of the door zips in quite heavy rain. This was stopped by taking out the window poles, so the rain drips straight off the roof.