Worth It!

We spent a loooong time finding the right tent for us! We settled on Kiwi Camping pretty early, but couldn't decide between the Takahe 10 or 15. Being able to view these tents fully constructed (we're in Chch) really helped. In the end, we opted for the 10. The 15 was great, but was massive! It's unlikely to fit on many camp ground sites. The 10 worked a treat! The blackout was an added luxury that was totally worth it! In short: we're very happy with our purchase. But read on if you want a bit more info to help in making your own decision. Nothing beats practical experience right?! The build instructions may need an update as there were a couple of challenges that weren't explained: the strap and clips that connected the two poles on either side of the sunroom took us a while to figure out, also, the idea of laying out the fly inside the tent for pack up is a good idea, but seems impractical given the double doors (and therefore central "pillar" of each set of doors) that means spreading out the fly isn't possible (but don't change the double doors - they're great!). We slept two adults and two kids in the tent. We ran the stretchers and inflatable mattresses lengthways (so each person had a door at their head). This worked pretty well as we kept the internal bedroom doors open (first time camping for our 8 and 5 year old). The Takahe 15 would be better suited if you want to shut the bedroom doors and keep the same sleep orientation. I'm 1.85m tall and the sleep orientation worked, but I noticed my sleeping matt (10cm thick, self-inflating) would have been rubbing up against the door if I had it shut. Not a deal-breaker for the 10, but worth a mention. We had a lot of drizzle and some rain. The tent held up well. No moisture inside the tent. We had to tweak the pegs for the sunroom entrance after the first night of rain as we'd had some pooling on the sunroom floor. This was the result of the entrance flap being velcroed to the floor of the sunroom. We didn't have the flap tight enough so the entrance flap sagged on the sunroom floor and water was able to run down this, and enter the sunroom through the velrco connection. We found it necessary to move the pegs for the entrance further out and avoid sealing the entrance against the floor velcro to ensure water didn't enter the sunroom. My suggestion for future improvements would be to move the velcro on the entrance flap a little higher up to ensure the entrance overhangs the groundsheet. But moving the pegs worked well...and it could be our inexperience in pitching this tent that led this easily resolved challenge. The benefit of the 15 is the sunroom is fully enclosed as part of the tent. The 10's sunroom is a groundsheet covered by a fly. For us this worked well. We used the sunroom as a type of porch before moving into the tent. It meant the sleeping areas could be kept bug free, but we could still get quick access to things like food and drinks which we kept in the sunroom. The dream would be an inflatable blackout Takahe 10. Inflatables go up and come down so quickly! But the size of the 10, the layout (kids one end, adults at the other) and the other features don't make me regret our decision. ...oh, and stringing up fairy lights inside the tent was a big win! It's truly dark inside this tent. You're going to need a torch to find things if you've got all the windows closed ;)
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