Oz tent RV-2, base camp

WashingtonTaco

WashingtonTaco

Adventurist
I have a couple trips coming up in May and June this spring that are base camp trips with no day to day trip movement. I haven't had a ground tent in years. The last one I owned is now being used by my daughter. I've been eyeballing the Oz tents for a couple years and pulled the trigger last week. Today UPS delivered a bunch of packages!! I ordered the ground cover along with the rain fly for accessories. Along with that I ordered few items from Drifta in Australia. The tent bag, the bunker bag for the ground cloth and side walls when I eventually purchase them. Per Luke at Drifta I will be replacing the factory tent pegs for #20 and #30 Snow Peak pegs. By a stroke of luck Matt of Kakadu camping out of Delta BC was in Australia and was good enough to put a set of Drift tent poles and spreader bars in his shipping container for me!

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I was just watching those videos the other day. He certainly has a good looking product. I hate the tent poles I use for my tarp/awning, and he's got that super sexy Snow Peak tent peg kit.
 
The #30 pegs are hard to get here in the US! I ordered them on Amazon but they are shipping from Japan! At least the shipping was free. They don't arrive until the end of March. Not sure when I'll receive the Drifta polls and spreader bar, hopefully before early May. I hit the road May 11th.
 
Received my Drifta canvas! Well made and more room for ease of tent placement in the bag. In Luke's videos he states his bags are not water proof but about as good as it gets. Living in western Washington that didn't work well enough for me. After a few texts with Luke he agreed it wouldn't hurt to wax the canvas.
 
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I don't really care for the petroleum smell of a lot of waxed canvas so I found on Amazon a wax that had no paraffins made in Portland all natural, free range, organic, gluten free and no animals harmed wax.
 
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So I rubbed the two bags down with the bar, used about a third of a bar. Put them in a pillow case zipped tied it shut and tossed it in the dryer on low temp setting. I did this to get the wax to flow better into the canvas. They came out with a low sheen and a bit of a weathered look. To me there is zero wax or petroleum smell at all. Looking forward to tossing it on the roof rack and testing it out.
 
Otter Wax is good stuff. I use it on a jacket of mine and I use their leather conditioner on some of my boots & shoes. The waxy feel should go away and any smell left over will be pleasant (or at least more pleasant than paraffin).

That's cool that you went all-in with the Drifta upgrades. I've been checking them out, but I honestly haven't had a lot of issues with the factory poles and stakes. The peg-able foot could be cool though.
 
krax said:
Otter Wax is good stuff. I use it on a jacket of mine and I use their leather conditioner on some of my boots & shoes. The waxy feel should go away and any smell left over will be pleasant (or at least more pleasant than paraffin).

That's cool that you went all-in with the Drifta upgrades. I've been checking them out, but I honestly haven't had a lot of issues with the factory poles and stakes. The peg-able foot could be cool though.
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Just wanted to get everything at once and be done. Still waiting on the Drifta poles to arrive in the shipping container. Hopefully by the end of April.
 
Got the word late last week from Kakadu Camping my Drifta pole set and eyelet kit is in! Ill be heading north this coming weekend to pick it up!
 
WashingtonTaco said:
When I placed this order Luke was under the idea Australian Post wouldn't ship them.
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Australian Post still won't ship them.

I used the AAV Lear Jet... we had to strap some fuel bladders in the interior to make the Trans-Pacific flight, but there was still enough room for the 6 poles, bags, and a case of Bundesburg Ginger Beer to fit in the cabin for the return flight.

No, seriously, Drifta recently started utilizing an international carrier, DHL. Not cheap but the only method available for most of us to get goods shipped here from Australia. I haven't inventoried everything yet but I can report that it was all packaged quite well with no obvious external damage. Certainly it was quick and their tracking app was as good, if not better than USPS, UPS, or FEDEX.

Additionally, the staff there was quite responsive by email, including Luke, and they were very informative and helpful. Of course I did name-drop to get special treatment and told them I know @Dave. :D
 
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