Brighton
My cousin had just bought his new car and wanted to take it for a spin so I suggested Brighton. Next thing, my cousin, his partner and I were in the car heading to Brighton. The weather was fantastic, not just by English standards but even by places that get sun. In fact, it was enough to get a sunburn. We wandered along the beach front, looking at the various shops, as we made our way towards the pier. The first thing I noticed was the severe lack of sand; it was a pebble beach.
Pier
We wandered along the pier and my cousin suggested we go on the Crazy Mouse and being the thrill seeker I am, I instantly said yes. As we clunked our way to the top of the track it became clear that my cousin wasn't a fan of these sorts of rides (or maybe rides in general), which just made it even more fun :D After the boys grabbed traditional fish and chips but I went for some Asian noodles with what they called "chicken" but might've actually been chicken flavoured tofu.
Beach
We thought we should probably walk on the beach and suss out the water but after kicking all the icebergs out the way, we decided that it was probably too cold for a swim. The good part about a pebble beach is that you don't get sandy feet but the bad part is that your feet get smashed to bits by pebbles, you just can't win. The pebbles aren't too bad to lie on by the way.
Jellied Eel
My cousin, the same one who talked me into the herring thing, gave the jellied eel a try but I passed. Apparently the eel was ok but the jelly wasn't too great. Then it was back into the car for a slow drive back thanks to a few crashes and peak hour.
Le Mans Day 1: Getting there
It was an early start to catch the overground to St Pancras station then get on the Eurostar. The Eurostar was nice and fast but there wasn't much to see (thanks to fog), especially inside the tunnel. The problem, and it's the only one, with high speed trains is whenever they go under a bridge or through a tunnel, the air pressure rises and you have to pop your ears but then you have to do it again once you're out the tunnel. I gave myself 2hrs in Paris to get from the station I arrived at on the Eurostar to the one I departed from on the TGV and I'm glad I did because although I was confident with the metro, it took me ages to find a metro ticket machine that didn't have a huge line, took credit card and actually worked. I made it in the end and caught another punctual French train to Le Mans.
Adoption
Once in Le Mans station, I started making my way toward to trams which would take me to the track but on the way I saw a guy wearing a Le Mans shirt looking kind of lost. The conversation went something like this:
Me: "You look as lost as me"
Guy: "I'm not lost, I'm here to pick someone up"
Me: "What's he look like?"
Guy: "Dunno, never met him before"
Me: "Bugga"
Apparently he was picking up someone who he knew through a forum (internet message board for those who don't know) but obviously hadn't met him. He offered me a lift to the track and I accepted. The guy turned out to be an absolute champ because he drove past the ticket booth so I could pick my tickets up then took me to the track and let me stay in his campsite, which was in a far better spot than the one I had booked. This guy and his Le Mans veteran mates (they'd been 20+ times) adopted me for the whole weekend and they fed me, drove me around and generally looked after me. This definitely made my experience far better than I expected.
Arnage
After dinner, which included horse, we piled in the pimp-mobile to head down to the Arnage corner of the circuit to catch some night practice. This was a great spot to see the glow of the brakes as they flew into the tightest corner of the circuit then hear the roar as they took off down the next straight.
Sleeping arrangements
I was trying to travel light so I only had that Czech bedroll, which wasn't really up the task of protecting me from a cold night and some light drizzle. Luckily my mate let me sleep in the front bit of his tent :D
Day 2: Car show
No racing happens on the track on Friday so we all piled into the pimp mobile again and headed to Saint Saturnin for a car show. Apparently they organise it with a small handful of cars who they know will rock up but the rest is all made up of visitors; basically if you turn up in a nice car, they put you in the show rather than the car park. There were all sorts of cars from new supercars (Ferrari, Mclarren, Lamborghini) to old European classics and everything in between. My favourites were the two true street legal go-karts; KTM Crossbow and Ariel Atom, and the H1 Hummer.
Tent
I definitely needed a tent so we stopped at a shop on the way home and I picked up a 1 person tent for 30 euro, not bad. Back at the campsite, setting it up wasn't very hard because it's a 2 second tent; basically open the bag and stand back. The trick is getting it back into the bag.
Village
I went for my first wander through the village (main area of the track) to see all the merchandise, etc. and there was an on track display to celebrate the 90th anniversary of Le Mans. It had some of the previous winning cars but my favourite was the Mazda 787B.
Day 3: Race start
First things first, we went food shopping to get lunch and snacks for the race; baguette and sausages for French style hotdogs... sort of. Anyway, we sat out the front of the camping area to watch the start of the race, one of the few times that all the cars are together. Unfortunately one of the Aston Martins crashed on the fourth lap of the race where the driver, Allan Simonsen, died shortly after. This was followed by a pretty long safety car period, just over an hour, while they repaired the barrier. The rest of the day was snoozing and watching the race.
Sleep
So it makes total sense when you actually think about it: you'll have to sleep at some point during a 24 hour race, but this didn't click until it actually came time to sleep. We were only 100m or so from the track so you could easily hear the cars but it turned out that it wasn't that hard to sleep, I actually found myself waking up when it went quiet due to safety cars.
Day 4: Race end
I woke up a few times during the night and went to see what was going on but as I mentioned before, it was normally because of the quiet/safety cars so there usually wasn't much happening.
Exploring the track
I'd been all around the top half of the track so now it was time to have a look at the bottom half. Unfortunately the track is huge and to get to the bottom corners, you have to take roads that really don't follow the track. There's a shuttle that takes you around but the line was huge so I decided to be a hero and walk it; it took me about 1.5hrs to walk from the shuttle stop to the Arnage corner, with a brief stop at the Porsche Curves, and by that time I was feeling pretty lazy so I took the shuttle (finally had room on the 4th one that came) to Mulsanne. The one gripe that I have with the track is that you can't see the main straight from anywhere; there aren't any viewing spots along the straight and the closest you can get at either end is part way round the corners so you can't see :( Still, I can say that I got to see the race from every spot available.
Finish
Right near the end of the race was a pretty chaotic time because there were people already leaving and everyone else was out to watch the track so it was pretty crowded. Once the race had ended there was a mass exodus as all the spectators for the day and at least half the campers left.
Dinner in the old town
As all the people I was staying with except one had left, with all the camping gear, we decided to head into town for dinner. We had a wander around the old town, which had lots of skinny and winding cobblestone streets, a fairly well kept section of the town wall and an impressive cathedral. The spot we chose was a burger place that serves the burger in pieces and you assemble it yourself; it was cool and yummy.
Jumping the fence
As most people had left, security had started locking some of the gates e.g. the ones that we wanted to get back into. We walked around to try a few but in the end we just decided to jump over because we're such rebels ;)
Day 5: Pack up
Not much happened apart from a nice long sleep and packing everything up. With all the locked gates, I wasn't looking forward to finding (or walking to) the nearest open one. Luckily, some cops let me out of one that wasn't too far out the way, yay for cops! I caught the tram to the train station where I wrote some blog stuff and enjoyed an awesome kebab with samurai (spicy) sauce.
My cousin had just bought his new car and wanted to take it for a spin so I suggested Brighton. Next thing, my cousin, his partner and I were in the car heading to Brighton. The weather was fantastic, not just by English standards but even by places that get sun. In fact, it was enough to get a sunburn. We wandered along the beach front, looking at the various shops, as we made our way towards the pier. The first thing I noticed was the severe lack of sand; it was a pebble beach.
Pier
We wandered along the pier and my cousin suggested we go on the Crazy Mouse and being the thrill seeker I am, I instantly said yes. As we clunked our way to the top of the track it became clear that my cousin wasn't a fan of these sorts of rides (or maybe rides in general), which just made it even more fun :D After the boys grabbed traditional fish and chips but I went for some Asian noodles with what they called "chicken" but might've actually been chicken flavoured tofu.
Beach
We thought we should probably walk on the beach and suss out the water but after kicking all the icebergs out the way, we decided that it was probably too cold for a swim. The good part about a pebble beach is that you don't get sandy feet but the bad part is that your feet get smashed to bits by pebbles, you just can't win. The pebbles aren't too bad to lie on by the way.
Jellied Eel
My cousin, the same one who talked me into the herring thing, gave the jellied eel a try but I passed. Apparently the eel was ok but the jelly wasn't too great. Then it was back into the car for a slow drive back thanks to a few crashes and peak hour.
Le Mans Day 1: Getting there
It was an early start to catch the overground to St Pancras station then get on the Eurostar. The Eurostar was nice and fast but there wasn't much to see (thanks to fog), especially inside the tunnel. The problem, and it's the only one, with high speed trains is whenever they go under a bridge or through a tunnel, the air pressure rises and you have to pop your ears but then you have to do it again once you're out the tunnel. I gave myself 2hrs in Paris to get from the station I arrived at on the Eurostar to the one I departed from on the TGV and I'm glad I did because although I was confident with the metro, it took me ages to find a metro ticket machine that didn't have a huge line, took credit card and actually worked. I made it in the end and caught another punctual French train to Le Mans.
Adoption
Once in Le Mans station, I started making my way toward to trams which would take me to the track but on the way I saw a guy wearing a Le Mans shirt looking kind of lost. The conversation went something like this:
Me: "You look as lost as me"
Guy: "I'm not lost, I'm here to pick someone up"
Me: "What's he look like?"
Guy: "Dunno, never met him before"
Me: "Bugga"
Apparently he was picking up someone who he knew through a forum (internet message board for those who don't know) but obviously hadn't met him. He offered me a lift to the track and I accepted. The guy turned out to be an absolute champ because he drove past the ticket booth so I could pick my tickets up then took me to the track and let me stay in his campsite, which was in a far better spot than the one I had booked. This guy and his Le Mans veteran mates (they'd been 20+ times) adopted me for the whole weekend and they fed me, drove me around and generally looked after me. This definitely made my experience far better than I expected.
Arnage
After dinner, which included horse, we piled in the pimp-mobile to head down to the Arnage corner of the circuit to catch some night practice. This was a great spot to see the glow of the brakes as they flew into the tightest corner of the circuit then hear the roar as they took off down the next straight.
Sleeping arrangements
I was trying to travel light so I only had that Czech bedroll, which wasn't really up the task of protecting me from a cold night and some light drizzle. Luckily my mate let me sleep in the front bit of his tent :D
Day 2: Car show
No racing happens on the track on Friday so we all piled into the pimp mobile again and headed to Saint Saturnin for a car show. Apparently they organise it with a small handful of cars who they know will rock up but the rest is all made up of visitors; basically if you turn up in a nice car, they put you in the show rather than the car park. There were all sorts of cars from new supercars (Ferrari, Mclarren, Lamborghini) to old European classics and everything in between. My favourites were the two true street legal go-karts; KTM Crossbow and Ariel Atom, and the H1 Hummer.
Tent
I definitely needed a tent so we stopped at a shop on the way home and I picked up a 1 person tent for 30 euro, not bad. Back at the campsite, setting it up wasn't very hard because it's a 2 second tent; basically open the bag and stand back. The trick is getting it back into the bag.
Village
I went for my first wander through the village (main area of the track) to see all the merchandise, etc. and there was an on track display to celebrate the 90th anniversary of Le Mans. It had some of the previous winning cars but my favourite was the Mazda 787B.
Day 3: Race start
First things first, we went food shopping to get lunch and snacks for the race; baguette and sausages for French style hotdogs... sort of. Anyway, we sat out the front of the camping area to watch the start of the race, one of the few times that all the cars are together. Unfortunately one of the Aston Martins crashed on the fourth lap of the race where the driver, Allan Simonsen, died shortly after. This was followed by a pretty long safety car period, just over an hour, while they repaired the barrier. The rest of the day was snoozing and watching the race.
Sleep
So it makes total sense when you actually think about it: you'll have to sleep at some point during a 24 hour race, but this didn't click until it actually came time to sleep. We were only 100m or so from the track so you could easily hear the cars but it turned out that it wasn't that hard to sleep, I actually found myself waking up when it went quiet due to safety cars.
Day 4: Race end
I woke up a few times during the night and went to see what was going on but as I mentioned before, it was normally because of the quiet/safety cars so there usually wasn't much happening.
Exploring the track
I'd been all around the top half of the track so now it was time to have a look at the bottom half. Unfortunately the track is huge and to get to the bottom corners, you have to take roads that really don't follow the track. There's a shuttle that takes you around but the line was huge so I decided to be a hero and walk it; it took me about 1.5hrs to walk from the shuttle stop to the Arnage corner, with a brief stop at the Porsche Curves, and by that time I was feeling pretty lazy so I took the shuttle (finally had room on the 4th one that came) to Mulsanne. The one gripe that I have with the track is that you can't see the main straight from anywhere; there aren't any viewing spots along the straight and the closest you can get at either end is part way round the corners so you can't see :( Still, I can say that I got to see the race from every spot available.
Finish
Right near the end of the race was a pretty chaotic time because there were people already leaving and everyone else was out to watch the track so it was pretty crowded. Once the race had ended there was a mass exodus as all the spectators for the day and at least half the campers left.
Dinner in the old town
As all the people I was staying with except one had left, with all the camping gear, we decided to head into town for dinner. We had a wander around the old town, which had lots of skinny and winding cobblestone streets, a fairly well kept section of the town wall and an impressive cathedral. The spot we chose was a burger place that serves the burger in pieces and you assemble it yourself; it was cool and yummy.
Jumping the fence
As most people had left, security had started locking some of the gates e.g. the ones that we wanted to get back into. We walked around to try a few but in the end we just decided to jump over because we're such rebels ;)
Day 5: Pack up
Not much happened apart from a nice long sleep and packing everything up. With all the locked gates, I wasn't looking forward to finding (or walking to) the nearest open one. Luckily, some cops let me out of one that wasn't too far out the way, yay for cops! I caught the tram to the train station where I wrote some blog stuff and enjoyed an awesome kebab with samurai (spicy) sauce.
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| The Brighton Lobster although I think it looks more like a shrimp |
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| Pebble beach... WTF?!?! |
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| Selfy on the jetty looking back along the Brighton coast |
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| The pimp mobile (Lincoln Continental Mark III) |
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| The car show, there were 4 more paddocks like this |
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| The Mazda 787B |
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| The start/finish straight as seen from the ferris wheel |
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| The Brit who made my Le Mans trip so awesome |
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| Old town walls in Le Mans |
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| The defense tower in the Le Mans old town |
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| Nice gothic cathedral in Le Mans |
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| St Pancras station. It's fairly big |
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| The view from outside our campsite |
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| My face was too big for the cutout :( |
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