Return to Waddington, same venue, smaller tent

September 05, 2012

Return to Waddington, same venue, smaller tent

At the end of June we returned to Lincolnshire for Waddington Air Show. We went back to Oakhill Leisure the camp site near Norton Disney that we've used for for the last 3 years. It's still a great place to camp and the new warden seems to be doing good things. It's not close enough to Waddington to see any displays without a strong pair of binoculars, but it's close enough to get there quickly and beat the traffic in the morning.

We had tickets for Saturday, but it was grey when we left Oakhill and by the time we parked at Waddington, torrential rain had set in. We all sat in the cars expecting that the day would be a wash out, but after half an hour the skies had cleared again and we had the perfect air show weather, high clouds and sunny intervals.

The day was better than I expected but compared to seeing the Vulcan last years and the USAF Thunderbirds which were amazing, it was a little flat for me this year. We did however get to see an amazing role display from the Tornadoes, the Korean Black Eagles, the Red Arrows, the Dutch F-16, the RAF Falcon Display Team, the Blades, the Lancaster, the Italian Tricolores, oh and of course the Typhoon. So no real let down! I hope you enjoy the photos at the end of the blog.

Vango Icarus 500

The condition of going to Waddington this year though, was that we didn't have to take the giant tent with us. The night before we went to River Dart in June, I popped out to get Lauren a sun hat, accidentally walked into Decathlon and bought a Vango Icarus 500 tent, it was on special offer at £149. This was the weekend to try it out. The good news was it went up in 30 minutes, it was tall enough for us to stand up, we had 2 good bedrooms big enough for beds and storage, it had curtains so we could still use the Lulu Tourlet at night in the living area. The downside is it's not big enough to cook in, but for a weekend - cereals for breakfast and dinner at the pub would get round that. You may remember from last year that we don't do cereal for breakfast on this particular weekend, so we took a gazebo and set up an outside kitchen. The tent packed up as easily as it went down, which is more than can be said for our friends pop up tent, which I eventually managed to get in the bag, it was like the worst episode of the Krypton Factor you've ever seen!

Pop up hell!

If you're looking for a good quality, easy to handle weekend tent, I'd recommend the Icarus for up to 4 people. You can get all the normal accessories if you need them - footprint, carpet and/or extension and the extension would probably make the tent better for a longer holiday, giving more room for either cooking or somewhere for your table and chairs.