Post
by sinikala » Wed May 17, 2006 9:31 am
Depends if you are sharing the driving and what sort of car.
I've driven the route in Winter, so the roads which cut through central Norway are closed then, you have to drive around the bottom of Norway... Stavanger - Kristainsand - Oslo - then on to Stockholm.
I'd say you need to allow at least 15 hours for the driving, not including pitstops. Points maybe worth attention.
Norway has very low speed limits, few passing places and hard to overtake the trucks.
Norway has a lot of fjords, hills, so the route is very winding and slow.
Oslo-Stavanger took us something 9-10 hours, but I did all the driving as my SO didn't drive until last year.
On the return leg Stav-Oslo, we knew we'd arrive in Stavanger in the night so we drove first to Kristiansand arriving perhaps 3a.m. stopped overnight in the Radisson there, which broke the journey into two more manageable halves.
Our car never had any problems, but some friends holidayed in Norway with their Ford Ka, they had to keep stopping to allow the brakes to cool as there were so many long hills to go up and down!
If the boat is the Jupiter you'll go on Newcastle - Stavanger, Color Line? It's a pretty awful boat, 20kT and was in a bad state of repair when we were on board.
Much nicer, and more conveneient is the DFDS Newcastle - Kristiansand - Gothenburg boat, IIRC it used to be about a 40kT boat, not as nice as the ones plying the Stockholm Helsinki route, but certainly better than the one running between Newcastle & Stavanger.
You could either put ashore in Kristiansand and drive Kristiansand - Oslo - Stockholm (10 hour drive?), or put ashore in Gothenburg and drive Gothenburg - Stockholm, takes about 5 hours to drive, but I think you spend then almost 2 full days on the boat from England.
The roads in Sweden are much, much better than the Norwegian roads, the difference is visible as soon as you cross the border.
I've made most of the permutations of England - Finland in both directions, I've also driven it the long way through mainland Europe, which is fun if you have the time to spare!
Feel free to PM or ask here if you want any more info!
