Camping in the UK means at some point you will encounter rain, especially if you choose to holiday in Wales which we did for a weekend recently. Elsewhere in the UK sunshine was abundant but in Wales it chucked it down for pretty much the whole weekend, sun came out as we were leaving, standard.

The only plus point of this scenario was that I got to use the side panel set I bought. They are made specifically for wind out awnings, each side zips round the awning arms and then you tether the panel to the ground using supplied pegs and you end up with something like this.

The Fiamma equivalent is about £170.00 per side whereas this was £110.00 for both sides. They were easy to deploy and held the rain off admirably, the only downside is that they aren’t so good if one end of the awning is lower than the other to allow rain to run off and not pool in the awning fabric, you have to repel the lower end. There is also a bit of a gap between the panel and the van so a bit of rain does come through.

Once dry the pack down nicely into their own little bag along with the pegs.

They are a good alternative to the Fiamma sides and will do the job for the odd occasion I take the family camping and it rains which hopefully isn’t too often…