As I blogged earlier today in this posting - we just bought a Outwell Indian Lake tent, and as it is a rather unconventional tent we put it up for the first time yesterday, and then took it down and packed everything away today - to make sure we could do this.

And then we put it up one more time, as we decided that the way we had packed it away (without unzipping the built-in groundsheet, did not work. We managed to get everything into the big packing back, but it was just too heavy to be carried for any distance by one person. This is undoubtably why they have the zip and the option to pack it away into 2 separate bags.

So we decided to put the whole tent up again - good practice before we need to use it in anger.

And this is when we found the first problem with the tent.

The groundsheet have some really solid fastening point and bungee-cord fastenings for the pegs. But these bungee-cords are very short and sturdy, and only held together with a simple knot - too simple it turns out, as 2 of them had decided to undo themselves.

(click for larger)

Fortunately it was still light so we could find them on the ground - but as they are black this would be a serious problem normally.

So we need to take spare bungee cord with us to be on the safe side, and find a better way of making sure these do not fall apart.