Ringed in red above you will see what is probably the smallest tent in New Zealand. Sally’s trusty North Face Tadpole but if you are keen to get one you are unlikely to find one in the shops as it is now entering it’s 4th decade and I don’t think the Tadpole captured much attention.
But Sally is besotted with her Tadpole and especially proud of it’s illustrious history. Long before she had to share it with me she trudged with it around Africa and Patagonia. Once it became our joint possession we have shoe horned ourselves into it for the trek around Torres del Paine and lugged it the length of the John Muir Trail. My most vivid memory of it’s use was opening up the fly sheet on a still summers evening to see Sally, knickers down, trying to wee and run away from midges at the same time.
This tent, dwarfed by it’s jumbo sized kiwi neighbours, has history and most of that history involves discomfort! Though it’s great to travel light there are trade offs. In the average hotel here a mattress is 20 cm thick and then, for good measure, they usually add on some kind of soft and cosy topper. In the Tadpole we don’t even have the topper. Just a measly 1cm of thermorest separates stiff joints from iron hard soil. And those thermorests are also from a similar era. Patched and stained by countless spills they leak air and leave us writhing the night away.
At least rain isn’t forecast so we don’t have to share our sardine can with boots and bags of food. But we do have to watch our neighbours fire up their cooking ranges and relax in their recliners for they have arrived by big boats. We have arrived by kayak and, of course, are more than a little smug about that!