Roughing it in the Camargue
Motorcaravan Motorhome Monthly (UK): May 2007

Jo Hegerty took to the aires. Jon Ashmore took the photographs.

‘So this is camping sauvage,’ I thought, placing two fresh croissants and a baguette on the table. I called out that breakfast was ready and Jon emerged from the bright, blue Mediterranean, just metres away. Where else, but France? Where exactly? Beauduc beach, the Camargue.

Almost entirely flat, the Camargue is a landscape of vineyards, rice paddies, great etangs, marshy deltas and salt flats, that stretches from the glorious Roman city of Arles down to where the Rhone rivers meet the sea. The entire area is a Parc Naturel Regional and we’d heard that it was the perfect place for camping ‘wild’.

We made a beeline for Salin-de-Giraud on the eastern side of the Camargue, where there’s an aire de camping car. Our arrival coincided with the highlight of the small village’s annual fete, ‘les bandidos’ so we abandoned our van and went to investigate. A road had been closed off and we could see a tight band of cowboys advancing along it, their white horses leaning in at an awkward angle. They were herding four small, black bulls from one enclosure to another while ‘thieves’ – the men of the village – attempted to kidnap the stock. Occasionally a bull would break free and the brass band would burst into a frenzied, cheerful cacophony as the thieves scattered, the crowd cheered and the bandidos chased the escapee up and down the street.

What we’d found was more than just a spectacle, it was a tribute to the gardiens, the cowboys of this area, who ride the wild horses and represent the centuries-old coalescence of man and nature in the Camargue. When the show was over, the men humbly accepted the applause of the villagers then went to tend to their horses.

The festive atmosphere was contagious and our intended pit-stop turned into an overnighter. Bull was also on the menu that night at La Camargue, a hotel with all the elegance of a time gone by and a friendly restaurant with a 13€ fixed-price menu. This included bull saucisson, soupe de poissons, taureaux gardiene (a slow-cooked bull and mushroom stew) with local rice, finished off with the perfect crème caramel.

The next day, we continued on as planned. The aire at Salin-de-Giraud has all the usual facilities, plus hot, clean municipal showers for 80c. As we were filling up our water a French motorhome pulled up beside us. We asked the driver, ‘Is it possible to camp on the beach?’. She looked at us quizzically then laughed and told us to try Plage de Piémanson, six miles to the south.

On the road to the coast, we passed pink salt flats and a mound of the white stuff that was the tallest thing around. When we arrived at the beach the reason for the French lady’s odd look became clear. It looked as if every motorhome owner in France knew that you could camp on Plage de Piémanson. The road had given way to a vast area of hard-packed sand, and each way, as far as the eye could see, there were motorhomes, caravans, even tents. Some areas were purely for the locals and regulars, and there were some elaborate set-ups. An army of vintage caravans, their wheels long ago enveloped by the sand, formed a neat suburb, complete with pilfered speed limit signs. Tourists – French, German, Belgian and us – clustered together in the middle.

We parked next to a French family in tents and walked over the low, scrubby dunes to the beach. The beach is around seven miles long and we could see still more campers in the distance. That evening we made friends with the kids next door and had a quiet beer in the makeshift café, which, we were to later discover, doubled as a nightclub.

The next day, on the advice of a Swiss kite-surfer, we moved to Beauduc, to the west of Plage de Piémanson. It was paradise, he told us, and far less crowded. ‘It’s worth it,’ he said. These words were ringing in our ears as we navigated our twenty-year-old van through the giant potholes and ruts. The road – if you could call it that – had been neglected years ago, now it was all but forgotten. Curious flocks of flamingos turned to stare as we bounced along past Étang du Fangassier. Just as we started to think that this wasn’t such a good idea, we arrived at Beauduc.

The first area was the size of a football field with a snack bar and a caravan suburb where local kids and pets played, protected by sand dunes. To the left, past a colourful sign reading ‘sauvez Beauduc’ was a bridge to the beach. Sure enough, it was worth it.

The beach was about 500m wide, with some low dunes on the left. Between our wheels and the sea, there was nothing but shimmering, flat sand. We drove for miles along the beach, passing motorhomes and campervans, some new, some ancient, some reconditioned. People were well spaced out and there were families, couples and groups of kite surfers distributed along the beach.

You can park as close to the water as you dare, but locals recommend parking next to one of the low, scrubby  mounds that dot the vast area, or next to the dunes. We chose our spot close to the water and waving distance from our nearest neighbour. In front of us, three local women were collecting shellfish for dinner, thigh-deep in the blue sea. It was perfect, we could have stayed for weeks.

The only facility on Beauduc was the snack bar, only open during the day. Near to this there was a place to empty the toilet, but no fresh water or drains to speak of. The beach was beautifully clean and tidy; everyone adhering to the ‘leave nothing but your footprint’ mandate and taking their rubbish away. Whenever we needed water and a hot shower we made the trip into Salin-de-Giraud, which, despite its aire, is definitely not on the tourist trail. We discovered a couple of fantastic restaurants here – as well as La Camargue, which will do a bouillabaise for 40€ a head, including dessert, with 24-hours notice, there’s Le Sports Bar, a relaxed and friendly bar/restaurant where the young waiter rattles off the daily menu featuring local seafood at good prices.

After a few days of sun and sea, we dragged ourselves away from Beauduc to the other side of the Étang des Vaccarès. Most people visit the Camargue for its fascinating collection of flora and fauna, including wild boars, tree frogs and, of course, flamingos. The best place to get up close and personal with these intriguing birds is at the Parc Ornithologique, a 12-hectare marshland packed with marsh birds, multicoloured dragonflies and wild horses. It took us around four hours to walk around the park, but, to be fair, a lot of that time was spent watching the flamingos feeding and squabbling – they are truly entertaining birds to watch.

That night we stayed at Les Stes-Maries-de-la-Mer, a few kilometres from the park. This is the Camargue’s only resort town and it is packed with hotels and restaurants, a far cry from the peaceful, sparse Camargue that we’d come to know. The aire de camping car (7€ per night) was large, but overcrowded. We spent the night shoehorned in between vans, so close we could hear the Dutch man next door snoring. ‘Give me rough camping any day,’ I thought.