Not all adventures go to plan
I bought my first tent around 25 years ago.
It was a 2-person Terra Nova Trisar, bought for backpacking and solo car camping trips. That tent has been going strong since then. It’s been to New Zealand. It’s had numerous weekends in the Peak District and Lake District. And it took us on a bike packing adventure in the Outer Hebrides.
One of its latest adventures was a patio camping night during the first lockdown in 2020. It was beginning to show a few signs of wear and tear although, if I’m honest, we could have managed a few more adventures out of it.
But lots of new, lightweight tents have come onto the market in the last 25 years and we decided a smaller packing, more lightweight model would be our next purchase.
The MSR Hubba Hubba
We (I say we) did some research and came up with a few options. Knowing how well the Trisar had lasted over the years, our favourite was another Terra Nova. But sadly nothing was available.
A chance discussion on social media with the Outside team in Hathersage gave us the impetus to call in and check the options in store.
To cut a very long story short, after much discussion about the way we planned to use the tent (fab customer service) we walked away the proud owners of a new MSR Hubba Hubba 2-person tent.
Full of excitement about possibly camping out that night, the heavens opened and we decided to stay in and watch the telly!
Friday night is wild camping night
That week, was wall to wall sunny days, balmy evenings and incredible sunsets.
Friday night - game on!
We furiously ran around the house after work, digging out the outdoor kit which had been lovingly stashed away for months. By 7.30pm (an hour later than planned), the slow uphill walk to our summit camp began.
It was tough work. Neither of us are hill fit right now, and neither of us used to carrying a heavy backpack. But you have to start these adventures somewhere right?
10.00pm arrived and it looked like we still had a good 45 mins to the summit. By now, the clouds had descended and the wind was blowing a hoolie. It was bitterly cold. Deciding discretion was the better part of valour, we looked for a place to pitch.
And that’s when it all went a bit pear shaped!
New tent, strong wind, hungry bellies
As seasoned campers with a variety of tents, we’d assumed pitching would be a piece of cake. To be fair, it is pretty simple but it’s different to our other tents so speed was not our friend. With the wind whipping round, it felt like the fly sheet on our lovely new tent would rip, or maybe even the poles would snap.
We took it all down as fast as possible, stuffed it back into the rucksack and looked for a place to eat.
A handy grouse butt was nearby, perfect to get out of the wind a little and finally have some food.
Night walking is an adventure too
We considered the options over beer and not gin.
With darkness falling and the wind getting stronger, we decided to retreat and walk back to the car. Thankfully, we’d both come equipped with good head torches.
Back on with the rucksacks we set off downhill, arriving back to the car not long after midnight.
It had been an impressive five hour trek with fully loaded rucksacks for our first venture out in years. And, whilst we hadn’t managed to sleep out in the Hubba Hubba (and still haven’t at the time of writing) we both felt like we’d had a proper adventure.
We’d also given ourselves the chance to check our kit and rucksack packing in a relatively safe situation. I have a hankering to do more multi-day walks with a packed rucksack, so it was good training and a great way to get started.
But I’m soooo looking forward to sleeping in the Hubba Hubba soon!
