Having been active members of a few camping groups online,we came to hear about the Decathlon Quechua Arpenaz Base m from quite a few people. We had heard such good reviews for it that we decided to try it for ourselves.
We purchased one for an upcoming show we were heading to in September 2018, we were pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to put up, we used a Coleman Classic Awning over the top of both the Berlingo and the awning, this created a shelter keep the rain off.
Beaulieu
We then throughout the 2019 show season without a single problem, myself and Paul slept in the shelter whilst team R.E.D slept in the camper, August 2019 we headed to the south coast to Beaulieu and the T fest, which is a gathering of Volkswagen Transporter, as we set out on the 7hr journey down south the forecast wasn’t good, but our spirits were high and thought ‘how bad could it be?!’. How wrong were we! Friday afternoon we arrived and it was already quite windy, but we needed the shelter up as this was where we both were sleeping plus somewhere to cook and shelter from the weather. We managed to get the shelter up and then we thought we would put the Coleman Event Shelter over the top to help but we got as far as erecting the poles to be beaten by the wind. We decided against putting it up and knocked the wind break down one side of the shelter. As we settled for the night the wind turned to gale force winds and torrential rain, during the night, all had to go out and knock a few of the pegs into the ground that were being forced out with the wind. its safe to say we didn’t get much sleep that night, gusts of up to 50mph ensured that we didn’t sleep. The morning eventually came and we woke up our fellow campers awnings and tents broken, a few role were packing to head home later on in the day due to not having the facilities to stay another night which was a great shame, we thought during the night should we head back but we didn’t, we had a lovely day heading around the motor museum (it’s one of our top places to visit!), it had been a few years since we were last at Beaulieu and made the most of it. We were ready for our bed that night, we even thought of cramping up with the kids the the T4 but that wasn’t fair on them, even though they were lovely and warm, not getting battered and pushed around in the tent outside. The sunday we woke up and the wind had calmed down thankfull, the sun was shining, although we were sad as we would be heading home that day, I was looking forward to getting into our own bed! Having said that we wer so proud of how the Quechua stood up to the storm, if we had of had a set storm pegs I think paul wouldn’t of had to venture out as may times during the night to keep the pegs in but it’s something we now carry with our camping kit.
I highly recommend this product, for the price we paid £79 it’s not the end of the world if it only lasted us a year but 3 yrs and we’re still using it. Anyone thinking of purchasing one, get yourself down to Decathlon and get one bought, I have heard they can occasionally sell out so please check before hand. Here’s the link below from their website. https://www.decathlon.co.uk/p/6-person-camping-living-area-arpenaz-base-m/_/R-p-157674
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