We woke up absolutely freezing this morning and the rain had started again. We had decided to head off today, we are hoping to head south as that's the direction we originally wanted to go. We thought we'd make a stop at Hamner Springs on the way, which has a place full of thermal pools which should be fun. We set off around 11.00am after we'd had breakfast and got the van sorted to drive. The rain was pretty bad and you could see where fields have been flooded, some of the roads were flooded pretty bad too. Our first turn off for Hamner Springs was closed, we spoke to someone who had come from that way. He said he lives that way but further down the road the snow is one metre thick. We had to travel further south to the next turn off, the further south we went the snow started to appear on the roads we were driving on. Everything was covered in snow, the mountains looked absolutely beautiful. The rods had already been cleared and fully gritted and were really easy to drive on. When we got to the next turn off this road was also closed, although we did see someone drive around the barrier. We found a pull in and James checked the highways agency website to see if it was possible to reach Hamner Springs. The road we had just passed wasn't on the list of closed roads, we rang and asked if there were any problems with that road and they said no it should be clear to use. So we set off again and went round the barrier, the road was curvy but seemed ok, the snow did seem to have fallen thicker here. We started to get roads which had more and more snow on them, we came across a campervan going in the opposite direction. The guy said it was very dangerous but would be ok if you went very very slowly. We set off and a car with orange flashing lights pulled up next to us, he asked why we were using this road and James explained about calling the highways agency. The guy said it's difficult to pass but said we should definitely make it to Hamner. He said he was going back that way and asked if we wanted to follow, so we did. The road was pretty snowy but they had started to clear it, it was still a hell of a lot better than Bridlington in the snow! What made it difficult was that we were going up and down hills in the snow but the camper is a slow and reliable diesel engine but it did cope ok.
The roads got a lot clearer and we passed a JCB clearing some of them, the guy we were following pulled over and we could carry on. It was another half hour drive or so not seeing many other cars before we got near to hammer springs. We weren't sure which camp site to stay at but hoped they would have spaces at the nearest one, we drove into town and it was heaving with people and cars, there were cars parked in every space. We found the nearest camp site James got out into snow around four inches thick in his long shorts and a pair of trainers, thankfully they had a space for tonight seen as it was 4.00pm by now. It was still snowing, the lady in the office of the campsite had said Hamner Springs is always busy in the snow. We parked up as best we could in our pitch given how much snow was on the ground,
James hooked up into the electric which instantly started the heater yay actual heat at last! Next with the help from the guy in the next camper James filled up the fresh water tank and emptied the waste water. When he came back in his trainers were soaked and he was freezing, he got in front of the heater and warmed up. Eventually we were both warm enough to have no jumper on, this is the first time since we arrived. Had something to eat and chilled out this evening watched a film read books and we'll go to the springs tomorrow morning.