Norway travel
Posted: June 28th, 2016, 4:36 pm
Here are some things I found about travel in Norway:
Cost : Alcohol is expensive, as is shopping in general. Norwegians pop over the Swedish border to stock up on alcohol and chocolate - we didn't see any border checks despite their being limits on what you are allowed to bring in.
Ferries (internal) : There are many ferries that are part of the road network. You just turn up and they collect about £10 from you and you drive on the next ferry.
Ferries (external) : We took a ferry from Puttgarden in Germany to Rodbyhavn in Denmark (about €100) and another from Helsingor in Denmark to Helsingborg in Sweden (about £40). These were expensive for such short crossings but we didn't book in advance. The overnight ferry from Harwich to Hook of Holland was a bargain at £276 return including an outside cabin (< 6m motorhome + 2 adults) - it was also very convenient meaning I could do a day's work, drive to Harwich in the evening for a 23:00 sailing. This was booked via DirectFerries.com. On the way home we took the 4.5 hour Langesund Norway to Hirtshals in Denmark which was booked via the same website for about £76.
Tolls : Norway have several motorways and some tunnels with tolls, These are electronic tolls with no toll booths. You can register your vehicle and a credit card in advance at http://www.autopass.no/en/visitors-payment. This worked out easiest for us. There are 2 ways to pay but we opted for the one where they deduct £30 off our credit card when we go through the first toll (it emails you when that happens) then it subtracts toll payments from that as you drive under the gantries. You tell them when your trip is likely to end and a given time after that they will refund any remaining amount, or in my case take another payment as I had run up more than £30 in tolls
Roads : Roads are very well maintained. In the mountains there are many whose widths vary as you drive - i.e. they may suddenly drop to single-track. All but one road we drove were tarmac. The roads going over the mountains (which you want to explore for their beauty) involve a lot of tight switchbacks, though were all tarmac in my experience and didn't exceed much more than 10% incline. Though you need to be able to stop, back up, do a steep hill start and pull right over to one side (either rock face or the edge) because there is often traffic coming the other way from trucks and coaches. So watch you aren't burning out your clutch (we can do these in low ration 4x2 for that reason). Also, there are a lot of long descents of around 10%. You need to use engine braking (often 1st gear) to avoid brake fade / failure. In the busier parts of Norway there are speed cameras.
Tunnels : There are lots of these. Some are wide with a lane in each direction and lighting. Others are bare rock, some with no lighting, some single-track. The unlit or poorly lit ones are a shock when you enter them from the bright outside and can see almost nothing as your lights bounce off the wet rock and tarmac. Some tunnels contain steep descents or ascents, others have hairpin bends mid-tunnel and some have junctions and even roundabouts. People drive most tunnels at around 45 mph to 50 mph (the latter is the speed limit on most roads in Norway).
Museums : Many are closed Mondays. But the major ones collected together in southern Oslo are open Monday. The viking long ship museum gets very busy - worth visiting shortly after it opens before the coach parties turn up. The other museums in the area are less busy, so we did them later.
Camping : Campsites are £20 in more remote areas and £30+ in more populated areas, and that often excludes the charge for showers (£2 each) and electricity (£4+). Away from built up areas remote camping is easy. On quieter roads there are nice picnic spots - we would find one late afternoon that wasn't near anyone's house and parked up. Although I believe such camping is completely acceptable we still took the precaution of not making the place look like a camp site - i.e. it looked like we had just pulled in and stopped for a while rather than setting out chairs, awnings, etc. Plus the picnic spots all have a bin and picnic table to use . Near tourist spots pull-ins, private parking areas and car parks tend to be clearly marked if no camping is allowed.
Wifi / data access : We didn't go many places with wifi - but then we weren't visiting cafes or restaurants (especially considering the cost). Some campsites had wifi, but we didn't get very good reliability / coverage in those. I have a 4G mobile wifi hotspot from 3 which has a roaming agreement with Norway and a providers in seemingly random other countries so data came out of my 12Gb built in allowance - so I didn't have to pay roaming charges. Mobile coverage was extremely good and we were able to get reasonable data rates in mountain areas where you would expect no coverage.
Language : Most people spoke excellent English. Many signs had English translations or were pretty easy to guess / translate.
Fuel : Diesel is substantially cheaper than petrol and was a bit more expensive than the UK. Strangely I would sometimes find I had been charged a lower rate than that shown on the forecourt sign. In remote places be careful because some petrol stations have one pump amongst the regular forecourt pumps that sells "red" diesel for agricultural use. In Norway's case it seems to contain a very slightly green dye. So look out for these - I don't know how likely you are to have your tank dipped, but best avoided anyway.
Steve.