- Hey, Snowys fam, it's Lauren here
with the Oztent Gecko Stretcher, series two.
It is the new and improved model from Oztent.
It is super hard-wearing and durable,
easy to set up and pack away.
So, it's around about 11 kilos, which is pretty heavy,
but not too heavy when we're talking about stretchers.
It's packed dimensions are just under a metre long
by about 27 centimetres tall and about 20 centimetres wide.
So, in the box, we will find
a little bundle of stretcher components
that is all held together with these Velcro straps here.
So, the bag itself, as you can see, it's fairly heavy-duty
and we've got some nice reinforced webbing straps
for carrying and things like that.
So, it's gonna be a forever storage bag.
Now, when we undo these little Velcro attachments,
they are actually, as you can see here,
attached to the bottom of the frame.
So, you don't have to worry about loose straps
that you got to keep track of.
These two metal pieces here are the ends of our stretcher,
which I'll put aside here.
Then we have our main stretcher body here.
Obviously, this big, chunky bit of black fabric
we've got here, is the central part of the stretcher.
As you can see here, this central hinge component
is actually going to be at the top of the stretcher.
So, whichever way you want to set your stretcher up,
make sure that that little hinge is on the upside.
So, as we straighten this out, like so,
you'll see that we've got our two end legs
that are tucked over the top here,
so they just need to be swung out and around
to the underside.
Do the same with the other end here.
All right, so once our three legs are in place,
we're just going to grab,
I like to grab the top bit, one hand on the bottom bit,
'cause it can be a bit awkward.
As we're going to tip up,
I'm gonna open it as a scissor action.
Now, when you're doing that, sometimes
this little hinge here can fold so make sure
you don't have your hands in that part 'cause you
could get your fingers and bits and pieces pinched.
So, the fabric kit can also be bunched as well,
so we're just gonna pull that out nice and flat.
Then, this is where our two end poles,
that I showed you before, come into play.
So, you'll be able to notice
the holes on one end are closer to this side
than they are to the other side,
and that's because when you're putting in your end poles,
the stretcher will be under a bit of tension
and that gives you space to hold your hand,
to get a bit of leverage.
Now you'll also see the holes are a little bit uneven.
One's got a flat side and one's got a horseshoe-shaped side.
The horseshoe-shaped side is the side
that you want to be pointing up to the sky.
So, if we check out our poles like that,
get the holes oriented,
we know that this pole is for this end
and this pole is gonna be for that end.
So, we will thread this one
through the little sleeve at the end here, like so.
Now, once we get here,
we're just gonna slide that little plastic knob
into the bar hole, like so.
And the same on the other side.
Now that end wasn't too difficult
because we've still got this one end side to go.
So, those with the keen eyes might also notice
that the pole sleeve on this end of the stretcher
is larger than it was on the other end.
That's there to make sure that this end,
which is gonna be a little bit tricky to put in,
you get as much leverage and room with your pole as you can.
So I'm gonna pop this one.
Slide that one on, like so.
Even that's just a little tiny bit tricky to do.
Now, on this end, I like to put my foot
against the base frame of the stretcher here
so that I can pull quite firmly
to get that one slid and locked into place.
So, once that's done, that's your stretcher all done up.
So, when it is brand new, fresh out of the box,
you'll probably find this process
a little bit harder than once you've used your stretcher
over time and you've slept on it
and all the fabric and the stitching
starts to relax a little bit as well.
So, once your stretcher is set up,
we have an overall total width,
including these little extension bars here,
of 92 centimetres.
The width of the stretcher,
in the body section here, from edge-to-edge,
is about 79 centimetres.
I would probably recommend that you take off
about nine centimetres, either side of that,
just to account for comfortability of sleeping
with the hard bars there.
So, also, we've got the length is 190 centimetres in total.
And again, you're probably gonna want to knock off,
yeah, about that nine centimetre mark, as well.
The materials in the main body section of the stretcher,
are a 600 Denier polyester,
and we've also got on the edge here,
500 Denier ripstop nylon.
So it's nice and strong with all that tension
going across the bars as well.
We have 25 millimetre square steel tubing,
and down on all six feet,
we have our little rubber stoppers to protect your floor
or your tent floor, for example,
or to help your stretcher stay stable on rocky ground.
There is, through the body of the stretcher, as well,
really thick, one-centimeter thick padded insulation,
which can help keep you warm
and also make your stretcher super comfortable.
Now this is the series two,
and aside from the very obvious colour difference,
if you are familiar with our series one Oztent stretchers,
you also have got a addition of
a mobile phone or a phone pocket
and a drink bottle or drink holder here.
And over on the other side,
we have a large mesh pocket with a little Velcro catch
to stop things from falling out
and we've got a second smaller, narrower mesh pocket there,
I should say.
Now the stretcher itself has a weight rating of 150 kilos.
I mentioned before that the length is about 190 centimetres.
You know, maybe knocking off
nine centimetres either end for comfort.
I am 171, so I'll line my feet up here,
sort of as close to the edge as is reasonable
and I'll lay down flat.
I've got a little bit of extra space here above me.
Obviously, if you're using a mattress
and you've got a pillow and things like that,
the sidebars aren't gonna be
anywhere near as much of an issue for you.
I can feel the stretcher itself is quite comfortable,
but I can feel there is a little movement
in the stretcher, as I'm lying here.
There's no movement from a side-to-side perspective,
but it is wobbling back-and-forth,
sort of from head-to-toe direction.
I think if you are someone who moves around a lot
or you're a side sleeper,
you will definitely feel that movement,
but it isn't something that makes you feel like
the stretcher is going to collapse at all.
So, that's about it for the Oztent Gecko Stretcher.
I'm gonna show you how to pack it up.
So, we're just going to, essentially,
pack up in the reverse of how we set up.
So, I'm gonna pop this top bar off,
which is super easy to remove.
Slide that one out
and I'm just gonna set it here for now.
Pop down the other end and do the same.
Pop that one out.
So, I'm gonna set these off to the side
and what I'm gonna do here is,
put one hand on one side, one hand on the other,
and I'm gonna lift and fold shut
and lay that one down flat.
Now, a little bit of a trick when you're doing this is,
when this frame shuts, it will pinch the end fabric here.
So, you might need to lift it up a little bit
to pull this fabric flap out,
which will then allow you to swing the legs around.
Do the same on the other end.
Now, once we're here,
we're going to pull these sides in,
apexing at that centre joint there
and we'll lift up this fabric as we pull it together.
Like so, and that allows the frame
to sit quite tight together
and I've got these two big bits of fabric on the end here,
which just can sort of wrap around or fold around the frame
and we'll get our elastic straps ready.
You might have to bunch in this fabric
a little bit, like so.
Pop the strap over and Velcro it together.
Same with the other end.
Now from here, we're just gonna grab our bag.
Might slide the fat end in first,
so we can tuck all that fabric away nice and neatly
in the bottom of the bag.
There we go.
And once we're here, I'm gonna tuck in our end poles
and then I'll get started on this zip back here, actually,
just to pop that frame into place,
on the zip all the way along.
So, that is the Oztent Gecko Stretcher, series two.
You can get this at snowys.com.au
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