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Hi all, I am a newbie here.

I last went camping probably over 15 years ago, in a little 2 man tent with my now husband.  It was one of the old fashioned types with rigid poles & was very snug!

We now have 2 children, aged 7 & 5 whom we are planning on taking on their 1st camping trip, a weekend away later in the month, not to far away from where we live.  We have purchased a Coleman Rock Springs 4 man tent.  However we are confused about the "instructions" which in essence are just a sequence of pictures without much info on.  From what we can gather it seems to be suggesting to do the fly sheet first?!  Could anyone on here tell us if this is correct. 

Hubby remembers more than me about camping as he went a bit with friends before he met me.  However, I remember not a lot about putting up a tent.  If someone could give me an "idiots guide" to how to put up this tent so I am able to help hubby, even with children about, it would be appreciated!  Thank you.

We are hoping the children enjoy camping as we have a week long camping trip booked for end of July also!!!!

Hope I have posted this in the correct section & sorry for being so clueless.  Hoping to get better & be able to go camping lots in the future :-)

Deborah

Yes, pitch the flysheet first by feeding the poles through the pole sleeves (they are colour coded with the end of the sleeves), bend on to the pins at the base of the flysheet and stretch out and peg. Make sure that the front and rear doors are closed when you peg. Once the outer flysheet is up, go inside and suspend the inner from the toggles (make sure that the door with the outer mesh is towards the front). Are you using self-inflating mats (SIMs)? We can only get 1 double and 1 single airbed in ours. Most tents sold as 4 man will only take 3 airbeds, being designed for 4 x 60cm SIMs. They are also generally intended for less people than that quoted.

Just a couple of things with this tent. The ring and pin fittings are connected by a really short length of webbing to the tent, which puts alot of tension on the attachment point to the tent, which has proven to be a bit of a weakness. As you will see on the review page for the tent on this website, we have tweaked ours to reduce that tension. When you pitch the tent you'll find that the pins on the rings are located within the webbing straps. We have slipped the split rings off the webbing and released the pins so that they are loose on the ring rather than trapped in the webbing. We then fed the split ring back on the webbing. This reduces the tension on the webbing strap when the poles are put onto the pins so its not so likely to pull on the stitching and the groundsheet of the tent (causing a hole). It is an easy to tweak and effective solution.

We have also sewn a loop of ribbon to the top of the inner tent to hang a light amongst doing a few other tweaks.

It is a great little tent and with the SIG and second rear door is a nice design. There are just a few easy tweaks needed though. One that you may want to consider is to suspend some lightweight fabric half way down the inner tent suspension points over the mesh roof of the inner tent as this will catch condensation dropping from the flysheet through the mesh onto your bedding when someone enters or leaves the tent or the rain dislodges it. Just make sure that you leave a good gap between the fabric and the outer flysheet. They must not touch or you'll just conduct damp.

We only use the tent as a compact overnight tent for 3 but it would do a dry weekend. In the wet you'd have to sit on the beds in the inner tent or in a row on the floor in the front outer area. If you are planning longer it would be very, very compact unless you are used to backpacker style camping!!! I would suggest getting the £25 Vango Adventure Tarp or the Khyam Atrium to make a porch out the front, which will give you valuable but affordable space and shelter for cooking and eating.

Happy camping!

Thanks so much for this info, much appreciated!

Hubby & I pitched the tent in our garden earlier tonight whilst children were at Girls & Boys Brigade.  With the help of your instructions it went really well, & made a lot more sense.  We have printed this off to take with when we go camping as yours are what we would call proper instructions!

We don't have any SIMs, just sleeping bags at the moment.  However it may be a consideration on the future.

Thanks again!