I turned the key.
Nothing happened.
I took the key out and put it back in. Nothing happened.
An hour earlier, the farmer had left, telling us not to go back over the road, that I’d driven over shortly before. It was too snowy he said.
My friend with their their own MWB Sprinter looked at me after he’d gone. “Are you going up the hill?”
“Yup”
“So am I then”. We set off up the hill in convoy. My LWB Sprinter in the lead.
As we got higher, there was less tarmac and more snow.
Slow and steady… Slow and steady. Constant gentle movement.
It started flattening out as the snow on the road surface got deeper.
I drove on past a stranded, broken down van, desperate to keep moving until the road completely flattened out a few hundred metres later at the top of the hill.
I stopped. Hazard lights on. Snow gear on. And went to check on the stopped van.
No sign of my friend’s sprinter.
I reached the stopped van and asked if I could help. “Oh we’re just here on a day trip to make an igloo” said the dad as his youths fanned around the back of the van.
I facepalmed. This was not a parking place for daytrips, it was a place you got stuck overnight.
Then I noticed my friend’s van. Struggling on a patch of snow. I went over. Since they’d stopped, it seemed impossible to get moving again. Eventually we agreed they should give up, and they reversed down the hill that twice had beaten their convoy.
I went back to my van at the top of the hill, ready for the exciting slide down the other side.
And it wouldn’t start. No matter what I did, it wouldn’t start and wouldn’t turn over. I’d left the hazard lights and headlights on with the engine off.
I swore loudly and wished I’d set my leisure batteries to be able to charge my engine battery. This wasn’t the place for electrical problems.
Outside, the weather was getting worse. Snow was falling more heavily. The road was white. The temperature had dropped.
Thinking about a plan, I got into bed. It was warm, it was cosy, and I could look at what might be the problem with my van.
I tried taking the handbrake off, rolling backwards and bump starting in reverse. But I couldn’t see the road edges clearly enough in the snow
Originally posted on this post on Instagram
