GEAR TEST//BLACK WOLF TUFF DOME PLUS
RRP $880www.blackwolf.com.auTe s te d byJUSTIN WALKER
A
FAMILY TENT has to have certain features
for it to become – and remain – that go-to
every time you and your partner/brood
head off for a few nights in the outdoors. It needs
to be tough, roomy, off er plenty of ventilation and
serve as a bearable shelter for those long rainy
days when you and the kids cannot get outside
its walls and explore. It needs to be easy to erect
and disassemble (to eliminate those always-feared
campground disputes), and it must pack down
reasonably compact; campers arrive at camp-
grounds in vehicles of all sizes so a tent that fi ts
easily in a regular sedan, hatchback or a rooftop
pod is worth its (hopefully light) weight in gold.
With a two-year-old and his four-year-old sister
essentially relegating our old hiking tents to the
cupboard, a large family tent was put on the
shopping list. I wanted a relatively lightweight
tent that could fi t easily into our Subaru Forester
XT, but could also – at a later date – do duty as our
outback touring abode. Black Wolf’s Tuff Dome
Plus tent fi t the bill.
The Tuff Dome Plus is part of Black Wolf’s
12-tent Dome range. On top of the regular Tuff
Dome, the Plus adheres to its moniker by adding
in an extra 600mm of interior length (its dimen-
sions are 4800mm long, 2400mm wide, 2000mm
tall), which actually makes a fair bit of difference.
We are a family of four and the Plus is rated as a
6-person tent, so the additional 2.7kg of packed
weight (the Plus is 11.5kg; the Dome 9.8kg) is a
very small price to pay for additional space. The
other main reason for choosing the Tuff Dome
Plus was its excellent interior height of 2m. For
someone topping out at 1.83m, fi ndingatentI
don’t rub my head on – or have to bend over to
fi t in – is a must.
The Tuff Dome Plus asking price may seem a
bit steep for a polyester/nylon dome tent but the
construction is top-notch, ensuring a robust build
that will cop any wild weather (it has numerous
guy-line attachments for extra stability in windy
conditions). Rather than use cheap, easily broken
plastic or fi berglass poles, Black Wolf specs tough
aluminium jobbies. The fl oor fabric is 300D
Oxford Nylon PU and has already copped a
hammering from us and the kids, fi lling with sand,
dirt, sea shells and other campsite detritus
without tearing or marking.
Clever features on the tent include gusseted
windows on the 150D Polyester PU fl y (there are
three large windows on the tent inner withno-see-um mesh, plus the front door) so even
when it is raining, you can still keep air flowing
through the tent as these gussets direct rainfall
away from the window and interior. The seams on
the floor and on the fly are sealed via waterproof
tape and we’ve had no water get in at all so far.
The 1.2m-deep vestibule is spacious enough to
store our duffel bags, Esky (most important!),
camp storage boxes and the kids’ toys. If I would
improve anything, perhaps an even larger
vestibule would be cool, although we’ve got
around it by stringing a separate tarp over the
front for the occasional time we’ve wanted more
shade/shelter.
To set up the tent is dead easy: the two main
poles (16mm aluminium) are pre-bent so thread
through their sleeves on the tent inner very easily.
The two 13mm aluminium poles used to extend
theflyandrearofthetentarealsopre-bent,and
also quite easy to fit and secure. Then you just
throw the fly over, clip it to the tent buckles and
you’re done. It takes 10-15 minutes at the most
and is even quicker to pack up.
So far the Tuff Dome Plus has performed with
aplomb, doing all it is designed to do. The
assurance of its robust build and quality materials
make me more than confident I will get many
years service out of this big bopper. Even though
the asking price is slightly formidable, spreading
that cost over what I expect to be many years of
reliable service makes this tent pretty impressive
bang for your bucks.LIGHT BUT TOUGH
INTERIOR SPACE
VENTILATIONHOT
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