We’ve settled on our accommodation needs for the Simpson Desert crossing. We’d originally thought we would be taking our roof top tent, but in an attempt to keep as much weight off the roof as possible we’re made the decision to go with an annex room which is much lighter than the roof topper and also gives us a sealed room for other things like cooking.
This is the Darche Annex Room 225 and, like most camping accessories these days, is made in China. That being said they haven’t skimped on features. It is 2m along the vehicle, and 2.5m out. There are 3 doors and two windows, all midgee screened. The base is a very heavy duty PVC that can be removed, but more importantly, can be left attached and it still fits back in the storage bag.
It attaches to the awning at either end via sail track, which most anwings come with (I had to add my own sail track). It attaches to the poles with good quality velcro straps. There is also tied downs around the bottom to allow you to make the sides taught.
All the doors have eyelets in the end so you can use poles to hold them up for some additional cover, which is pretty cool. This is especially good with the door furtherest from the vehicle as it basically allows you to have an extended awning (it’s rolled up in the photo below as the poles were in the shed and I couldn’t be bothered going to find them).
The windows on the sides have 2 zipped positions, fully closed, or another zip that allows the bottom of the window to push out to allow for some airflow but still prevent water from entering the room. These can also be full unzipped and held up with poles if required.
Our queen size inflatable mattress fits inside at the end as per the image below, and while it does come back to the side doors, it shouldn’t be an issue and still leaves room to get into the vehicle via the zipped door nearest the vehicle. If you had a double air mattress, it would fit a bit neater and obviously give you more space to move around.
Our plan is to pump the mattress up when we arrive at our overnight stop, and then lean it up against a wall out of the way if we need room for cooking etc.