I forgot, the other aspect of setting up camp (and which takes up a lot of time) is kakking out the wife for either giving the wrong tent pole/peg/rope at the wrong time. Many a nights camping were shared in silence...
Happened every time with the camping trailer when setting up the awning.
Now with the van I prepare the outside (unhitch, jacks down, open door), take out the chairs and table, pull out the fridge, then let her get on with the inside stuff.
Look, he doesn't go inside the trailer to set up anything inside or make the bed.
He doesn't put out any tables.
He didn't put down the ground sheet.
He didn't set up any chairs.
He purely did the trailer.
So let's call in 25 minutes if he did all those things, fetched a beer, sat down & cracked it open.
So this past Long Weekend the 4x4AG went to Koranna Getaway.
Tammy & I arrived at 16:10 on Friday.
By 17:00 we were set up.
But we did not set up the awning over the kitchen - this we did on Saturday & it took about 12 minutes.
However, we did a FULL set up (other than the awning).
I had to chat to Avon about plugging into his power at my cord didn't reach the power point.
Tammy made the bed.
We laid out two groundsheets.
We unloaded the Fortuner - including the fridge.
We unloaded all the well-concealed booze.
We set up both tables.
We spent about 10 minutes chatting to others.
So, actual FULL set up took about 45 minutes.
I'm happy with that.
I just did a quick setup test run and my solo camping setup takes 35m56s according to my stopwatch.
This includes opening my rear door, popping my tent, laying out a ground sheet, putting my mattress down, placing a sheet over the mattress, putting my pillow down, opening my sleeping bag, connecting an LED light to my spare battery, taking out a smoking chair and a table and opening my Coleman to reach for an imaginary beer.
Kurt, stopping to analyze your progress, making a check list and putting on your gloves before starting and then taking them.off once done, plus plotting it all on a PERT analysis probably added 24mins 38seconds...
PS - I did not do a test, I just wanted to shut Manoel up. Timing your camp setup, let alone starting an entire thread about it, is way too anal for my liking.
On the last day at Ribbokloof, out of about 20 campers:
Solo Kurt was, I think, first packed and I was last.
Wife & I had RTT on a Mini Metalian and
solo Kurt had ‘Front Runner Pop-Up Tent‘ ..... (name amended for Kurt)
both of us had Senior Gazebos
which probably added the most work.
... but I took it fairly slow, few cups of tea,
advice to neighbours etc.
Manny in his camp next door, had his army fully deployed and mobilised under loud management ...
... seemed to do a lot of work, and so finished comfortably ahead of me.
(Conquerer Conquest, TTT, awnings, groundsheets etc ... everything except his FC Porto flag ...)
Last edited by BushWacker on Sat Oct 10, 2020 11:01 am, edited 8 times in total.
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