Gotta love steel. (Bean)

Bean here.

So I managed to find the pegs from our old tent and whad' ya know they are a much sturdier. These ones look like steel whereas the default ones appear to be a zinc alloy. Having said that I could be totally wrong since I have no idea about metals and their properties.

Anyway here is a photo of tent pegs. Pretty exciting stuff!

2nd Pitch (Al)

Still getting hot at 8am, which is when we took the tent down from the firepit area (with all the burrs) and re-pitched it in the wash-away (with all the clay).  Had fun getting it back in the bag (not) until we realised that tying the roll together is a bit of a help . . .

Pruned the nearest mulga and cleared some twigs and branches and the thought we'd trial the new screw in pegs with the drill . . .

which snapped.  But then the traditional pegs didn't really get much further.  So more research to do on pegs for buggery hard/clay ground  . . .

We did get it sorted eventually, with the old pegs etc, and enjoyed the four new sliders that actually SLIDE . . .

beginnings and the bell tent

Probably starting off as I, certainly, mean to go on:  i.e. more images than text, but we'll see how it goes and what Bean ends up doing . . .

So, the bell tent arrived, and we decided the best test to see if we needed 'smart' pegs (more on that later) was to try and hammer the ones it came with into our baked clay and quartz dirt.  Also worked out (painfully) that the groundsheet isn't immune to applejack spikes.  I hope the rubbery texture of the material means it will close up after being spiked.  Otherwise and that could be a world of dampness . . .

 photos as this point were also so we could remember how to fold this monster back up so it would fit in the bag.

 Yes,  the ground is hard.  Yes, we're going for 'peggy peg peg' screw in (with a drill!) pegs.

 Oh, yes, canvas.  Some artificial precipitation as it's unlikely we'll be seeing the natural stuff for a while.  No leaks.  Excellent.

 A mini big top!

 The freebie muslin 'sleeping room' inner tent.  Seems to make sense.

 Kind of looks like we have hobbit guests in the back yard.

Muslin sleeping room up and monster sized sleeping mats fit (side ways rather than lengthwise, so I'm sure I'll be tripping over Bean as I head to the loo at 2am). But so worth it for the extra width and length of the thermarest air mattresses.
It's going to be fun to see what works easily and what's a nightmare when we start our test runs down to Rainbow Valley when it gets cooler.  We're waiting for about 30-12 max and min, so will be a little while yet.
When the new pegs arrive, we'll move the tent and try the pegs on the 'car park' area:  sandy with some hard stuff, to see how they (and we) go.