UKC

Hoping to go to northern norway in June and would ideally bring a car. Anyone know if the Newcastle ferry will be running or aware of other reasonable alternatives? Will most likely hire there and fly if not.

In reply to peter.herd:

Stricken with post-Xmas malaise, I looked into driving there in the summer. Ferry from Harwich to Denmark, then a five hour drive through Denmark, and another ferry to southern Norway. Cost worked out at about £800, all the relevant websites are in English so it's easy enough to work out. Not actually that much driving (at least to the south) but the ferries were pricey.

In reply to peter.herd:

http://driveeuropenews.com/2013/11/09/norwegian-seaways-is-serious-about-it...

At the bottom it mentions that the Newcastle - Norway ferry won't be running on time for summer 2014 (although there seems to be a lot of support for it). Me and a few friends have been looking at going to Norway over summer aswell and it seems like the cheapest option for a shorter trip (approx 2 weeks) is flying to Norway or Sweden then renting a car. Driving seems like it would eat up a lot of time and money, although for a long trip (4 weeks +) i'd imagine it would be cheaper in the long run than car rental.

Hope this helps.

In reply to seankenny:


When we've looked at Harwich - Esbjerg it has always been horribly expensive. Can you get deals if you book ages in advance?

Peter, probably the cheapest way up north is to go ferry to Dunkirk then start driving, probably easier to drive up Sweden if you want to go to Northern Norway. It is a hell of a way though! You can break it up with some cragging stops, lots of possibilities through Sweden.

In reply to peter.herd:

The summer before last we took our campervan up to the Arctic. It was neither cheap nor quick, but I guess younger people driving a car and sharing driving could do it in a few days.
We took the Harwich - Esbjerg ferry which takes about 18 hours and cost about £700 return if I remember correctly (see DFDS web site). You could probably drive from Dunkirk nearly as quickly with several drivers and certainly a lot cheaper. Getting from Denmark across to Norway or Sweden costs A LOT especially if you just turn up rather than book ahead. I think about £180 for Frederikshaven to Goteborg. Hirtshals to Larvik(Norway) is similar. The bridge over the narrows apparently costs nearly as much as the competing ferries. Then there's a long drive either through Norway - slow and beautiful - or Sweden - faster but rather less interesting. The Sweden route is often dual carriageway and there's a higher speed limit (80kph throughout Norway, and supposedly strictly enforced) but the drive across from Lulea to Narvik is quite superb.
BTW I have a large road atlas (about 500 pages) of all Scandinavia and a Lofoten climbing guide which I'm willing to sell if you're interested.

In reply to peter.herd:

depends where you are in the UK, but we've done Newcastle to Amsterdam (overnight ferry setting off 1700 arriving 0900 the following day)then driven up through Germany into Denmark (we stopped over night there because of having young children but you could push on through).

We then took the "new" bridge over to Sweden, spent a few days at the nice Swedish bouldering area near an island on a lake camping site (can't remember the name but could easily look up our locations if it fitted with your plans).

From there an easy and scenic drive up to Oslo, wild camping on the way, before heading over to Bergen. Driving in Norway is beautiful but slower - so judge the distances accordingly - very easy to wild camp in amazing locations, we found.

We had three weeks and didn't feel pushed for time, but we didn't make it much more than Galdopiggan (spelling?) mountain range north.

Hope this helps - am sure you can do the same journey much faster if you don't have very young kids.

S

In reply to peter.herd:

Look up flights. e.g. Manchester to Norway £35. Then hire a vehicle.

In reply to peter.herd:

I flew from liverpool to Oslo (Ryannair) and thence to Tromso (Norwegian budget carrier) for relative buttons (maybe £200 in total) in 2010... maybe rent a car at the other end? diesel was a bit less than UK prices at the time, btw.

In reply to peter.herd:

Two years ago I drove (alone) Edinburgh to Narvik area via Dover/Calais (The Harwich Ebsjerg ferruy semed outrageously expensive for the time and mileage saved) and then via the big bridge from Denmark to Sweden (expensive toll, so ferry further north might be economic). It was about 2500 miles each way (so would be about 2100 miles from London) and cost about £900 return in diesel, ferry and tolls. It took four and a half days big days driving each way (so about four from London). The saving on car hire and a car load of food at non-silly-Norwegian UK supermarket prices and the ability to take kayaks for damp days, cunning approaches and fishing made it an excellent economic option. However, this was six week trip. Obviously it becomes less economic for shorter trips and the driving time (which was not unenjoyable once off the German autobahns) might seem unjustifiable if your time is limited. I would certainly do it again, though a Newcastle/Bergen ferry option would be very attractive at a sensible price.

In reply to peter.herd:

Cheers for replies folks.

I think we are settled on flying to Narvik or Bodo and hiring. Ferries appear to be pretty expensive and we are Aberdeen/Edinburgh based so would require travelling south anyway. We were hoping to take mountain bikes as a back up for weather but can't have everything i suppose. Car hire ~£250 per week with 4 people in car is not too bad. Perhaps i can buy a cheap fishiing rod..

In reply to Robert Durran:

Robert - thats an impressive journey! The dream was to take food and bikes and ferry from newcastle. Perhaps one day. I am hoping to be there for 3 weeks so should get a little sunshine (by scottish standards at least).

In reply to TobyA:

Honestly, I have no idea. It was a late night, two glasses of wine down, back of the envelope bit of trip planning. Then I lost the envelope.

Sorry to be a bit useless!

In reply to Rog Wilko:


It's currently €46 euros each way for a car. I've used it a number of times now, but also tried the Helsingor-Helsingborg ferry which it sort of replaced. The ferry was maybe a touch more, and the road up to Helsingor in Denmark isn't as good as the motorway up from Malmo on the Swedish side, so slower. The bridge between the big Danish islands also has a significant toll - not as much. You avoid that if you come on the ferry from Germany into Denmark. The ferry makes the drive from Dunkirk shorter but it cost more.

In reply to TobyA:

We have had some deals for the Harwich Esbjerg ferry, but seems rather random when they have them.
And it is horrible expensive normally, which is annoying as my parents are 10 min south of Esbjerg and would quite like to go over with the car more.