Say Hello to Berry!

A New Member of Our Crew

Hello everyone! Today I am going to introduce you to Berry, our new tent. This was the first purchase I and Anna made when we decided to start our journey in trekking, and it is the piece of our equipment which summarizes the most how it all started: we had been talking for a while about picking up camping and trekking and so on, and one sunny, day we went to Decathlon to spend some time having a look around. We went through all the tents and tarps they had in store, but nothing seemed to be good enough, as, they were either too heavy or too small, or too something else. It was just then, out of a moment of frustration, that I picked up my phone and simply searched for “Tent” on their website, and there she was! It looked just good from the pictures and the specs where really not bad ( more on this later ). At first, neither of us was sure about whether to buy it or not, as we both knew what getting a tent would mean: there was the real, exciting risk of making hours of talking about stunning places to visit, exhausting journeys and wonderful activities to do come true. So we said yes, as a yes you say when you have almost no idea of what you’re doing and you’re just thrilled by the idea of stepping of the beaten track with someone you love. A yes so spontaneous, so straightforward, so obvious that one couldn’t help but starting to feel the wind caressing your face.

The features

What’s inside the box

The tent comes in a soft bag, whose dimensions are 30h x 13l x 18w (we work in centimeters) for a total weight of 3.2 kg, which makes this tent one of the lightest tent available in the market compared to others of the same size and the same price range (we paid it 39.99€, on sale). The tent comes rolled up around its poles and pegs, in order to prevent them from scratching or tearing it.
Pegs and poles come in two separate smaller bags, and care must be taken when pulling them out, as the poles are connected with a fabric spring and get tangled easily. Rods are contained inside the pegs bag.
Berry is a double-wall tent, so once unrolled, the inner and outer tent come stacked up and folded beneath the bags containing the pegs and the poles. Once all the parts have been carefully removed from the bag, the mounting process begins!

Mounting and Unmounting

Mounting the tent is pretty straightforward (as everything from Decathlon is). There are plenty of videos which explains how to mount, how to unmount and how to care for the tent. Because of a picture is often worth hundreds of words, here is the video from Quechua which was most helpful for me and that will show you the mounting and unmounting procedure, so that i can focus solely on talking about tricks and precautions that we are going to take.

Even though the inner tent was made to be directly laid on the ground, to prevent dirt from sticking under the floor and rocks from tearing or piercing it, we will first lay a tarpaulin slightly smaller in size than the perimeter of the inner tent. We do this in order to prevent rain dropping from the outer tent to accumulate under the inner tent, with catastrophic consequences.
Both the inner and the outer tent requires pegs to hold firmly to the ground, an are mounted in a crossed fashion (that is, if we were to trace the lines which connects the pegs, these lines would form an X for the inner tent and a + for the outer).
The tent will be mounted with the main door facing the north, and this has really no practical reason beside the fact that i used to mount the tent this way, when i was a boy scout (and no, this has really nothing to do with me liking camping, as my group was pretty boring and liked to play it safe when it came to camping in the woods).

Inside the tent

The dimensions of the tent are 121 cm in height x 200 cm in length x 190 cm in width, meaning that Berry is more of an hotel room rather than a camping tent, as we plan to use it for just the two of us. This tent is huge, full stop. The gap between the outer and the inner tent is just large enough to prevent the two walls from touching and transferring all the water and condensation from outside inside the tent, meaning that almost all the volume of the tent can be used as living space.
Inside, the tent is pretty plain in design and features, having just a hook on the top of the roof (which can be used to hang a lamp or a fan, in hot summer nights) and a medium-sized pocket next to one of the doors, of the size of a book, which can be used as your camping bedside table.
There is enough room for three regular sized sleeping bags (200 x 70, squared in shape), but i wouldn’t advice to host more than two people inside the tent, mainly because of the absence of a porch of some kind, which means that all of the backpacks and stuffs must be kept inside the tent. Being just the two of us, the space left inside the tent will be used to store all the backpacks and things we carry on our journey. Of course, for hygienic reasons, a tarpaulin will be laid over the floor of the tent to prevent dirty stuffs from touching the sleeping bags and the inner tent itself.

Outside the tent

The tent features the latest ( by the time of writing ) Fresh & Black technology from Decathlon, which keeps the inside of the tent cold during summer (thanks to the silver, reflective coat on the outer tent) and ensures total darkness during night, even with moonshine or artificial light coming from the camping location. On the top of the tent, two sticks hold the outer tent opened, allowing for air change and reducing condensation but making the packing of the tent inside its bag quite difficult, as they seem to be made of wood and can easily break.
As the picture shows, the tent offers the possibility to keep both doors opened at the same time, which is great for cleaning and housekeeping but requires paying constant attention to the entrance, as curious animals might choose to enter the tent.

Epilogue

Here we come at the end of our talk about Berry, a very sweet, cosy, simple and nice tent which has already given us good memories and has become a part of out team. I can just wonder about the places we will be seeing with her, the nights we will be spending inside, listening to the sound of the the falling rain, relaxing to the chanting of the crickets and safely resting from a great long day of adventures!