Arctic Circle road trip - a blog

[Watchman]

Definitely avoid Lillehammer. That was a tedious drive.

Maybe a ferry to Bergen, then three smaller ferries on the shorter road to Molde. Still an 8 hour journey from Bergen but plenty of stops. Trouble is you'd get off the Bergen ferry after midday so you'll arrive at Molde quite late.

Ah... Planning decisions...

[tog]

FiF said:

Apart from not especially caring for the Hull ferry, and let's face it landing in Europort or Hook is very much of a richness, the drive from Rotterdam area up to north Denmark is a decent day drive. From say Calais Eurotunnel adds three hours and imo over 13 hours in a day, for a single driver, is pushing it, not impossible.

So my route would be
Day 1 pm to Harwich, M5, M42, M6, A14.
Overnight to Hook
Day 2 Hook to Aalborg, (simply because I know Aalborg better than Aarhus)
Day 3 Drive to Hirtshals and catch ferry to wherever.

I've done Hook to Hirtshals in a day (1000km, 8 hours, alone in the car so not dawdling) and caught the evening boat, though that has the disadvantage of arriving in Larvik at about 2am. Fine if your destination is close by, but a bit of a pain if you then want to find a hotel or drive a lot further.

[VerySideways]

Yeah, can't disagree on the Hull to Rotterdam ferry. it's not great!

Kristiansand to Molde: 11 hours: https://goo.gl/maps/a1DLQQb8GhWv8PNNA
Kristiansand to Molde, more picturesque, 14 hours: https://goo.gl/maps/9zmPAV2xuz1m4co6A

Food for thought

[Watchman]

FiF said:

Re ferries OP, I'm in Worcestershire too, Hartlebury(ish) and whilst the Harwich -Hook service doesn't save you any time I found it the least hassle. Maybe I was lucky the times I went that way, and unlucky when using the short channel routes but after a few rancid runs round the M25 and the M20, not to mention one arriving in Boulogne right in the middle of the Friday evening school run and rush hour, not keen.

Obviously as you know the Northern routes to Kristiansand/Gothenburg and tge Esbjerg routes are no longer. Can't remember the arrival time at Kristiansand , early PM?, but arrival at Gothenburg was 6pm. If you didn't manage to get some decent rest on the boat you were setting off into the dusk and soon knackered, plus as you mention that Gothenburg traffic. Off topic, but Gothenburg has the distinction of being the place where I have got most lost trying to find my way. Was trying to find the ferry port, in the end took a long way round and attacked it from the north side of the river. A colleague once resorted to stopping a taxi driver and paying him to lead the way.

Hanbury here - between Droitwich and Redditch.

I'll look into ferries because if I can save road-time and and a hotel this way, it makes a lot of sense. As you note, your arrival time with ferries can be awkward, and I'm finding this in regard to the Bergen ferry.

Gothenburg was horrible this year - mostly because of the roadworks, but I remember when we went over with the kit cars in 2000 it was a rough-looking town, in contrast to Stockholm which seemed cleaner and more "Scandinavian".

I got lost leaving a hotel in Helsinki. The other Se7ens drivers left the hotel car park by driving under the barrier but I got stuck because I had spare tyres tied to my roll cage. By the time I'd dug out my bar-code ticket, undone my harness and leant out of the car to open the barriers, my friends had gone, so I followed signs and ended up at one of those small ferry ports - not the massive port I was expecting.

We did a 50mph wide 180 drift, and headed back the way we came, crossing some water flowing across the road at over 100mph on ABC10 tyres. We were "without friction" for the longest of breaths, and our hearts paused until we felt the car bite again.

By comparison, driving on very cold snow and ice at 70mph in a 2.5 tonne truck seemed positively sedate.

Edited by Watchman on Monday 2nd March 21:53

[mercedeslimos]

FiF said:

Agree, Harwich to Hook overnight crossing ended up being the preferred route for me.

Over the years tried all the various routes, Newcastle to Kristiansand/Gothenburg, Harwich to Esbjerg, Harwich - Hook as mentioned, plus various short crossings, Dover - Calais / Boulogne, boat and cat, Tunnel.

Many of the services no longer operating of course, but Harwich - Hook in either direction the most civilized and convenient, imo. Ok it's more expensive than the short crossings, but you save a night's hotel plus a fair few miles, including avoiding Kent. You board, get settled in and have dinner while still alongside or in calm waters, get a good night's kip, reasonable breakfast also in calm conditions, then unloaded and on the road before the morning rush builds up. Too many unfortunate memories of breakfast while hanging onto the table and crockery on a corkscrewing DFDS Esbjerg service. Cabins were nice though.

Did Harwich - Esbjerg on a coach trip to Denmark in the winter of 2000/2001, seemed OK that time, certainly compared to Swansea - Cork in winter on the old Superferry. Remember sleeping in the bar as we never got a cabin, and being lifted off the seat on the crest of waves.

[Watchman]

There's a petition to have the North sea ferry restarted. I doubt anything will come of it but thought it was worth the 30 seconds to add my email to the list:

http://chng.it/xTPpxbyB5d

[VerySideways]

Watchman said:

There's a petition to have the North sea ferry restarted. I doubt anything will come of it but thought it was worth the 30 seconds to add my email to the list:

http://chng.it/xTPpxbyB5d

Regina Line actually did a deal to lease a ferry to restart the Harwich to Esbjerg route a few years back, 2015 i think.
They started taking bookings and so on, and then the owners of the boat sold it... as far as i'm aware they're still looking for another suitable vessel.

[FiF]

VerySideways said:

Watchman said:

There's a petition to have the North sea ferry restarted. I doubt anything will come of it but thought it was worth the 30 seconds to add my email to the list:

http://chng.it/xTPpxbyB5d

Regina Line actually did a deal to lease a ferry to restart the Harwich to Esbjerg route a few years back, 2015 i think.
They started taking bookings and so on, and then the owners of the boat sold it... as far as i'm aware they're still looking for another suitable vessel.

The problem with that petition is right from the start, claiming foot passengers aren't allowed on Dover/Calais, which was something I didn't know, and sure enough just got a price for travel from P&O to Calais and back on foot. Clearly DFDS does appear to have binned foot passengers on the short crossing routes Calais and Dunkirk, though ok with a bicycle apparently. Foot passengers ok Harwich to Hook, plus train stations right by the terminals at each end.

Whilst admitting that personally the route historically used the most when doing that North sea crossing regularly was the Esbjerg service, the thing that eventually made me look for alternatives was when they just started ripping the piss on price. It got to the state where I once got quoted thick end of a grand for a crossing in just one normal vehicle, not a van nor high vehicle, no trailer either, plus it was a booking well in advance. OK it was in the summer season, so demand led pricing I guess. Worked out that a much longer route in terms of drivng hours, with extra fuel and extra hotels actually saved a lot of money, yet took no longer overall. The ship Dana Sirena wasn't a mini cruise type vessel, it was an ex commercial freight RoRo that had been tarted up a bit.

[tog]

FiF said:

Worked out that a much longer route in terms of drivng hours, with extra fuel and extra hotels actually saved a lot of money, yet took no longer overall.

It's the huge growth in affordable air travel over the last 20 years that killed the Scandinavian ferries, and has also done in most of the motorail services. Most people on here like a nice road trip, but we are not most people overall - most normal people just want to be there instead of spending time getting there.

[Watchman]

tog said:

FiF said:

Worked out that a much longer route in terms of drivng hours, with extra fuel and extra hotels actually saved a lot of money, yet took no longer overall.

It's the huge growth in affordable air travel over the last 20 years that killed the Scandinavian ferries, and has also done in most of the motorail services. Most people on here like a nice road trip, but we are not most people overall - most normal people just want to be there instead of spending time getting there.

So true. What's wrong with people?

OK, what's wrong with us?

[Riley Blue]

Watchman said:

OK, what's wrong with us?

Nothing.

For some (most?) people it's the destination that matters; for some it's the journey. I'm definitely in the latter group.

[VerySideways]

Riley Blue said:

Nothing.

For some (most?) people it's the destination that matters; for some it's the journey. I'm definitely in the latter group.

[FiF]

Riley Blue said:

Watchman said:

OK, what's wrong with us?

Nothing.

For some (most?) people it's the destination that matters; for some it's the journey. I'm definitely in the latter group.

Very true, there's a greater sense of occasion about a journey to a destination which goes at a reasonable pace, be that road, rail or boat, and strangely the feelings of arrival are more intense. You'd expect it to be so with air travel, the speed with which ripped out of one environment and dumped in another, but for me slow speed arrivals are more memorable.

[NRS]

VerySideways said:

Yeah, can't disagree on the Hull to Rotterdam ferry. it's not great!

Kristiansand to Molde: 11 hours: https://goo.gl/maps/a1DLQQb8GhWv8PNNA
Kristiansand to Molde, more picturesque, 14 hours: https://goo.gl/maps/9zmPAV2xuz1m4co6A

Food for thought

That's not including time for stops though...

[Watchman]

NRS said:

VerySideways said:

Yeah, can't disagree on the Hull to Rotterdam ferry. it's not great!

Kristiansand to Molde: 11 hours: https://goo.gl/maps/a1DLQQb8GhWv8PNNA
Kristiansand to Molde, more picturesque, 14 hours: https://goo.gl/maps/9zmPAV2xuz1m4co6A

Food for thought

That's not including time for stops though...

Stops are for wimps.

Only kidding, although other than stopping at the places I'd already planned to see, I didn't stop much... only for loo breaks really. I had drinks and sandwiches in the car and stopping "because I've been driving for 3 hours" just didn't appeal to me as a lone traveller.

It'd have been different if I was in company.

[scottos]

Thats been a great read, thanks for sharing!

[Watchman]

scottos said:

Thats been a great read, thanks for sharing!

Thank you for your kind comments.


My blog has achieved the intended purpose - to highlight the trip and generate interest in another. At lunch, I threw a proposal out for a colleague - that we go and visit the Kola Deep Borehole in the north or Russia. I plotted a couple of routes, both taking-in St Petersburg but one returning through Finland, and the other retreading my tyre tracks through the Arctic Circle centre and the Atlantic Ocean road.

Both will require some serious commitment in terms of time and money. I wouldn't try this alone - and I would very much prefer a Russian speaker on tour with me. I do have a Russian speaking friend (Bulgarian - close enough) who coincidentally owns a newish Q7, so I'll see what he thinks but I suspect the commitment would be too great.

Anyway, the scale of the trip is best shown below.

Return via Finland




Return via Norway

[Watchman]

This would be more realistic.

Visit Berlin. Never been and always wanted to.

Visit in-laws in Torun, Poland. My kids should come and be my translators.

See Polish mountains (Katowice).

Return via Prague (never been).

Pass through the area around Munich and Bavaria in general (beautiful - I have been before, in the Caterham).

Strasbourg - never been and always wanted to go.

Home.

[FiF]

OP are you still interested in the contact details for that outfit that ran the Northern Lights chase?

Appears they may have gone down to Cornwall, Redruth.

Only way can access the website is through the website design company, so though it looks live not sure if it's just in development or not.

Not for me, too many pictures of Defenders being dug out of impossible snow for my liking, plus Arctic Circle camping for accommodation, no thanks.

Anyway Mudrut Adventures Redruth

[Watchman]

Thanks but after reading through their blogs, I came to the same conclusion. They definitely have some dedication but it's all about Land Rovers and camping. Too hard core for me. Love their blogs though.

I really want to attract some SUV owners for future travels - X5s, Q7s... That sort of thing.