Hexa Tarp

I first saw a Hexa Tarp on a YouTube video. I thought it looked pretty handy, but I didn’t really think about buying one until my first tent disintegrated after about a year in the sun.

I originally bought the small Hexa Tarp from Drifta Camping & 4WD, but that wasn’t big enough for my tent, so I sold that and bought the large version.

This is one of those bits of gear that’s unbelievably better than you originally thought.

It cools the tent in the hot sun and gives you a bit of extra shelter when it’s rainy. The cooling is quite considerable and worth it just for that, but I also use it to block UV radiation on my main tent.

I had it up constantly in the hot sun of Tolga in far north Queensland at my mate Scotty’s place, and then during summer in Canberra. Each time, it was up permanently for about six months, and then it started to weaken after that.

This is not a criticism of the HexaTarp; it’s just that most people won’t have it up for well over a year of constant use as I did.

It was still usable, but I did rip it once after that, and then it was time to buy another one. That was probably 15 months of solid use during two consecutive hot summers.

There are many great features to the Hexa Tarps. Probably the main one for a solo traveller is that you can put it up by yourself. In fact, in Tolga in Queensland, I once put it up by myself in 20 km/hr winds. There is no way at all you can ever do that with a standard tarp to protect your gear.

In fact, this stayed up during very, very strong gusty winds and torrential wet season rain. I had one instance where three of my friends in houses around the area had leaks into their houses. I didn’t have a single drop of water in my tent.