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Hello - I have been lurking for a while and taking in all the good info and advice offerred...

I have just retiired an old 4 man  inner first dome that has served us well for several years (bought in Oz - lived in it for  6 months in fair weather camping and since its return to the uk - it has taken some serious battering)... so did a lot of research and bought an Oregon 5. Pitched it in a friends gadren - took us an hour and I have a few questions before we set off this weekend...

1) Old tent didnt have mudflaps - and I cant work out what to do with them - if you leave them pegged outside the tent do they not just collect water and sag in the middle? I tried to 'roll' them up so as they woudlnt collect water but they were very annoying and I coudln't get them to roll - so sort of pegged them outside - any tips please? 

1a) Why do mudflaps exist?

2) What is the best way to pitch the tent - I found the luggage strap things quite perplexing and coudln't work out how tight to  tighten them or to  have them looser?

3) Despite all the research I did I  thought you could l actually unzip the smaller inner - but it sems you can only 'roll' it away - what is the best method for doing this?

I have consulted the link befow but I still don't really understand how to do it!

All info greatfully recieved!

http://www.ukcampsite.co.uk/chatter/display_topic_threads.asp?ForumID=3&TopicID=78864&SearchPagePosition=1&search=outwell+oregon&searchMode=allwords&searchIn=Topic&forum=3&searchSort=dateDESC&ReturnPage=Search

Thanks for your reply.With the straps Im mainly confused about how tight or loose to have them - My old tent was a lot simpler than the Oregon! I watched the  video but Im still a tad confused.

When we piched in my friends garden we didnt bother with the groundsheet for the living area that Outwell supply as her grass was fairly long - but we will be using it this weekend - so I will try tucking it under. This is possibly our penultimate camping weekend - so will take it slowly and try and lay off the lager until we are finished pitching - hoping it wont take an hour this time!

how funny. we have just been away in ours and could not work out what to do with those flaps either. not sure i can help on the other items as we are complete novices and I dont know what the luggage straps are! lol! but hope you find the answer

Thanks to all for your replies.  I am glad to see that I wasn't on my own in my confusion over the mudflaps - but thanks to the link provided by Jane I do 'get' them now!

We are just back today and we took the 'pegging out' option - but if it's cold next time we may well do the 'tucking under' the groundsheet. Again we didnt use the living area groundsheet - we had half of this area covered  by our groundsheet that was also under the sleeping areas - but it was rainning a fair amount and so made the exit this morning a bit slippy - so will use next time. It took us just under an hour or so  to pitch - but it looked better and felt more stable than last time. Maybe next time we'll have it down to a much more acceptable time!

I also now get the  concept of the 'luggage straps' - but did struggle to get them pegged in with the small ring that attaches to the inner to be on the inside of the tent - are these maybe the ones that you are referring to Jane?  Or maybe im confused - not knowing the tent very well yet  - Ill look out for them next time we use it.  Thanks for letting us know about the issue with steams - will keep an eye out for that - maybe evern just get some duct tape now!

We did evenually work out how to roll away the smaller inner - but there was no velcro - just ties. Having it rolled up  made the larger inner a bit 'floppy' - as there was nothing to support the zipped off area. So we decided to just have it up to store our stuff (of which we have huge amounts!)

We are also considering getting ehu and a fan heater so as we can go camping when its a lot colder - I presume if we did this then we might be better to peg out to try and avoid condensation build up?

Overall I do totally love the Oregon 5. We had two very tall friends with us (they were in their own campervan) and  when we were all sitting in the tent there was still loads of room.