Epinettes Camping Experience

[aricus654]

Hi!

I know that a few CAers stayed on Epinettes Camping, if you did....

What was it like?
How were the facilities?
What was it like getting in and out?
Errr..?

Aricus

[Newcastle Dave]

Keep it a secret:

What was it like?

I thought it was very good. There was a single entrance with security asking to see vehicle passes and race tickets of everyone as they passed in and out whether they were on foot, in vehicle or on bike. This led to a feeling that the site was pretty secure and the situation meant it had only campers there and no persons passing through. The entrance was not opposite the Houx/HA entrance as had been thought beforehand but instead 200m further south along the road. As well as camping on the field there was access to ad-hoc camping in the trees that shield the site from the road.

There was a cosmopolitan bunch of campers of all ages - mainly tents interspersed with the usual mix of interesting vehicles. It was not too raucous but an acceptable level of late night music, bangers and iriots on motos and scooters. I didn't hear of any thieving whilst I was there, but have since read that someone had their scooters nicked.

How were the facilities?

An internal gravel circular access road with three shower and toilet areas - the one we used was regularly cleaned all weekend. We camped opposite it and the longest queue I saw for the shower would have been about ten persons. There was always hot water when I was there. There was power available for those with extension leads.

What was it like getting in and out?

No unreasonable difficulties, but arriving whilst the track is closed at the peak times of Wednesday and Thursday pm/evening will mean you have to join the traffic queue of arrivals to Houx/HA or an approach from the BSJ direction might be better?

MB aside, it will be my first choice campsite for next year.

[Lazy B'stard]

Have to echo what Dave says. Pretty good on balance. Not quite the atmosphere of MB, but if you like being able to get a bit of kip over the race week then it's a good choice. Only drawback is its a fair hike to the track, so best take one of those new fangled push bicycles. I get a nosebleed if I'm more than 100 yds from a bike these days, so having one at Le Mans this year made for a very happy camper.

[Chrisgr31]

We stayed in it and it was fine, pther than the Danes behind us who ran a generator all night every night, well until around 5am anyway.

One of our party had an incident in the shower where the drains were obviously blocked and the water level rose, this wouldnt have been so bad except the the brown item that came up through the drain!

However think that was just unfortunate as no further problems encountered.

Access was easy as others have said.

[enzo]

We stayed there too have to agree quite a peaceful little spot compared to some campsites.

The access was acceptable for most of us except dad who in his older years and gets grumpy about every walk but he got the free train driven by the crazy Rastafarian chap to drop him off once on his run from antares to technoparc.

Handy spot other than that, as it is a similar distance walk to get to dunlop bridge end of village (except for the steps) or to the bottom paddock end of the village. handy for the tram too to the drivers parade on Friday (my god did they ever drag that out).

Toilets and showers were kept spotless. Bit more or a chore to get out of compared to BN.

Will definitely be up there for future years choices for camping.

[cja]

....... handy for the tram too to the drivers parade on Friday (my god did they ever drag that out).

Damn right!

We got bored and retired to the bar, them buggered-off back home, to re-make our acquaintances with the bottles of lonely wine we left behind.....