Well after lots of looking we have found a camper van, yippy...... but its all the way up in Sheffield! So we decide to hire a car and head North again.  We stayed the night in a fab hotel, the family room was huge with really nice comfy beds, a great big flat screen tv, and a shower that worked. What more can you ask?

The next morning we woke up to lots of snow, which the girls thought was great, especially as the hotel car park had been closed to cars due to the fact it was on quite a slope, which made it perfect for sledging and they had it all to themselves.

While Pete went off to seal the deal with the camper van and return the rental car the girls and I went to the Cooper Art Gallery in Barnsley, and had an enjoyable and warm afternoon looking at the art and spending time in the kids section which had lots of cool activities. 

Once we get our hands on our new camper we head out of Sheffield to a lovely area on Timber Lane near Chesterfield, with the intention of staying the night to get settled into camper life.  

The snow and ice in the car park of Timber Lane helped us choose our parking spot for the night! Luckily there were no other campers in the area as we found ourselves stuck in the snow!

 Pete getting a bit exercise, and the girls having a ball.

Once we start to get ourselves set up in the camper we find that we are a little short of water, so the girls go snow collecting.

The next morning the friendly neighbouring farmer gives us a much needed pull out of the car park, and we are on our way.

Once we're on our way we head into Chesterfield for water and other supplies and find a church with a crooked spire.

After we have stocked up we head into the Peak District and start looking for a camping spot for the night, and after what seems like a very long time, we come across a diary farm with camping available so we decide to stay the night and as we start to reverse towards the camping power supply box to hook up to the electricity we get stuck in the snow....again.

The next morning while we waited for the farmer to finish milking the cows the girls made the most of their time..... Yes they were on the sledge again.

Then it was all go......

.....and before we knew it, we were on our way again.

Our next stop is just outside Castleton to the Blue John cavern where we went down some 300 feet into the Blue John caves to see the semi-precious stones know as Blue John.  The sparkling fluorspar comes is many different colours from blue to yellow and the veins can be seen quite easily down in the cave.

Parts of the cave tour are very narrow,

While other parts of the cave open up into large chambers, and the largest is know as Lord Mulgrave's Dining Room as the lord once put on a banquet for the miners there.

The girls looking up at the sparkly veins of Blue John.

Back up to the top at last.

From the Peak District we headed West to North Wales and stayed the night at the lovely village of Betws-y-coed. We arrived in the early afternoon and found the wild camping spaces very easily at the back of a very large carpark.  We decided to have a walk around the village and had some fun jumping boulders and breaking ice puddles down at the edge of the beautiful Llugwy river, which flows right past the centre of the village.

During our walk we crossed the Conwy River using the Snapper suspension bridge,

Then headed back to the camper to spend the rest of a wet afternoon doing a bit of home baking, yum.

Bournemouth

A few days later we headed West for a day out in Bournemouth to meet up with some of my family from the Midlands who had travelled down South to see us.

We had a wonderful day out, and the weather was perfect with lovely winter sun and no wind.  We had a lovely walk along the pier.

Followed by a game of soccer on the beach.

and a nice warming cup of hot chocolate in a near by beach side cafe.

Next we headed to that very English seaside entertainment, the penny machines and had a few goes trying to make our fortune at the machines, but predictably it didn't take long to lose our small collection of 2p pieces, but we had some fun and some nostalgic memories of childhood for me.

A last couple of photos before the days end.

What a lovely week we had 'Up North' on our quest to find a camper van. Our first stop, after a day of camper van hunting was at a service station hotel in Lecister on the M1 and with only 2km's to our destination the girls got their first taste of a real traffic jam as all three lanes of the motorway ground to a halt and didn't move again for an hour and a half. Thank goodness for the 'kids jokes' we'd down loaded the day before to help keep us amused during our wait!!!!

Next morning we had breakfast in the food court area of the service station which spans the now free flowing M1 before we head north to York.

   
In York we stayed in a lovely two hundred year old cottage with a very cute stable door.

 The first thing we did in York was to walk along the battlements of the old Medieval wall which once encircled the town of York.

The medieval wall was built on top of the even older Roman wall, and there are still parts of the old Roman wall visible

There are still two of the original four bars (gates) still standing,

 and this one had accommodation built into the upper floors

Parts of the wall now in the middle of modern York town with the Minster behind.

After a warming cup of hot chocolate we headed to The Shambles which is a medieval street that is incredibly narrow with timber framed houses on each side of a cobbled street. The buildings are so old that some of them are leaning all over the place and in parts of the street the upper stories are almost touching!

Also in the heart of York is York Minster.  It is Britain's largest Gothic building and took 250 years to build and has the worlds largest medieval stained glass window.  The window apparently has half of all the medieval stained glass in England!

York also boasts the house where Guy Fawlke's parents lived.

Some other lovely views of the old building in York.

The next day we headed back to York to spend some time at the 'Jorvik Dig' which is a really great educational area where you can have a go at being an archaeologist.  

We grabbed a trowel and started to dig.  

 The four pits are filled with finds from the four different time periods that have been dug up from under York's streets. The Victorian age, the Medieval, the Viking and lastly the Roman era.

 After unearthing the 'finds' in the pits you can go into another room and handle many of the artefacts from the different time periods, and you can actually get to hold some fossilized Viking po, the girls weren't too keen to handle that!!!