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Hi, this is my first post on here although I have been a follower for a while!

I have a Vango Icarus 500, my first tent, and am going camping in bonnie scotland this weekend! :)

I just wondered if anyone had tried the adventure tarp with the Icarus to offer more cover if it rains to cook under etc? or if you have any other ideas/advice for shelter whilst cooking in the rain I would be most grateful!

Thanks!

Thanks Jane T for the flattery.

The ensign grey or darker grey version is a very flexible colour - goes with both our green and blue tents. There are some good buys on ebay at the moment.

             Hi

                 I bought the tarp in blue last year off ebay,think it was 21.99 to match our blue  icarus, I dont think its a good buy personly because we had to buy extra poles to use it, it only comes with a small pole to use in the middle of the tarp,also if its raining side on everthing gets wet,so decided to buy icarus sun canopy look at gallery cost £50 from camperlands in manchester if you way up the costs of tarp and extra poles a canopy my be best option for you.          

Hi, I looked at these but you only get 1 quite small pole and I think they are designed for extending the smaller vango tents. I think this would be much more suitable for your needs. It's the same price as the Vango one too.

http://www.decathlon.co.uk/EN/tarp-3243880/

If your tent comes with porch poles you can use these for the Adventure Tarp and with an extra set of longer guyropes it will do any tent with a front arched pole. We use the short pole when we use ours with the low dome or to lower the tarp on the weather side when using it with a taller tent. We tend to use the tent's own poles for the tarp, making it exactly the right height. The elasticated side of the tarp sits behind the front tent pole, kept in position by guyropes tightened and directioned towards the rear of the tent.

It is marketed for small tents but we use ours for all our tents including our large 445cm wide Vango Columbia, just using the tent's porch poles and a longer set of guyropes. Saves the cost and pitching time of using different canopies for each tent. There is a picture of it on our full height Kampa Bude 4 in my gallery.

We have made a couple of 1.5 x 1.5 panels of tent fabric which we can quickly clip to the sides if the weather is side on, but we've only needed them once or twice.  We can even add them to deal with head-on weather (which you can't do with open-fronted canopies). If you use windbreaks, these do a similar job. We only use the tarp if the weather is wet anyway - which for our last 3 trips hasn't been necessary.

Canopies and extensions are excellent if you keep your stove, etc underneath them all the time  and need the added indoor space. We don't, so the tarp is so much more compact and flexible, providing shelter as and when needed. It rather depends on your style of camping as to whether a canopy or tarp is best for you.

ok... so the first camping trip of the year highlighted some must-haves that I still need to get! but on a budget!

I definitely need a tarp/shelter of some kind for my icarus, (plus a windbreak - any suggestions?) ....trying to cook whilst holding a huge golf umbrella is not easy!

symrat - did you try out your new canopy? how much room is there to sit under it with the slope of the tent behind you etc?

cheers!

There are two recommendations on the forum re. windbreaks that might be of interest.

In terms of stability the wooden poled stripy beach windbreaks seem to get the thumbs up. You can add guyropes if necessary. The metal poled ones are less substantial, often fail in the wind and the numerous guyropes seem to just get in the way.

The other option given your cooking issue - is one of the roofed windbreaks - Gelert and Khyam do them I believe. Although metal poled, you can actually make a square cooking shelter out of them.

Quote: Originally posted by Speedcamp on 26/5/2011

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We have made a couple of 1.5 x 1.5 panels of tent fabric which we can quickly clip to the sides if the weather is side on, but we've only needed them once or twice. 

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