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Here's what i've found out so far:
The ferry from Newcastle to Gothenburg takes 24 hours and costs about £130 return in the cheapest cabin from 1st April to 18th June (more in the peak holiday period). The train fare from Gothenburg to Narvik is approx. £105 return couchette (6 people per compartment), £135 sleeper (3 per compartment). Add the cost of food eaten during the two days on the ferry and train and diving and accommodation and the trip is starting to look expensive. I don’t know how much the ferry from Newcastle to Bergen costs* but still suspect it would be much cheaper to come that way and drive up from there. It's a long drive but the scenery is magnificent and you could break the journey and stop overnight on the way – there are plenty of cheap camping cabins to rent all over Norway (cost about £10 per person per night). It would also save a lot of lugging of heavy gear from the ferry to a taxi, taxi to station and station to train.
An alternative would be to use Ryanair's cheap flight from Stansted to Oslo and fly up to Narvik from there. You can do Stansted-Oslo for as littles as £55 return, including all taxes and charges, if you book early enough, but watch our for excess bagage charges: Ryanair’s limit is 15 kilos free. Excess bagage £4 per kilo, I believe. In fact, it might well work out much cheaper, especially as it would eliminate the cost of the overnight stop and meals on the ferry and during the road journey. However, that would only work if you could arrange hire of cylinders and weights for the whole group, Kyrre. Depending on what you could arrange, it might mean that people had to dive with different cylinders than they use at home. Twinsets might not be available from the local diveshops, for example.
* I’ll leave it to someone in the UK to check the price of the ferry from Newcastle to Bergen and to Kyrre to check the cost of flying from Oslo to Narvik. Over to you, folks! I would probably fly from Gothenburg to Oslo and then fly to Narvik with the UK people, assuming they decided to fly.
Here's what i've found out so far:
The ferry from Newcastle to Gothenburg takes 24 hours and costs about £130 return in the cheapest cabin from 1st April to 18th June (more in the peak holiday period). The train fare from Gothenburg to Narvik is approx. £105 return couchette (6 people per compartment), £135 sleeper (3 per compartment). Add the cost of food eaten during the two days on the ferry and train and diving and accommodation and the trip is starting to look expensive. I don’t know how much the ferry from Newcastle to Bergen costs* but still suspect it would be much cheaper to come that way and drive up from there. It's a long drive but the scenery is magnificent and you could break the journey and stop overnight on the way – there are plenty of cheap camping cabins to rent all over Norway (cost about £10 per person per night). It would also save a lot of lugging of heavy gear from the ferry to a taxi, taxi to station and station to train.
An alternative would be to use Ryanair's cheap flight from Stansted to Oslo and fly up to Narvik from there. You can do Stansted-Oslo for as littles as £55 return, including all taxes and charges, if you book early enough, but watch our for excess bagage charges: Ryanair’s limit is 15 kilos free. Excess bagage £4 per kilo, I believe. In fact, it might well work out much cheaper, especially as it would eliminate the cost of the overnight stop and meals on the ferry and during the road journey. However, that would only work if you could arrange hire of cylinders and weights for the whole group, Kyrre. Depending on what you could arrange, it might mean that people had to dive with different cylinders than they use at home. Twinsets might not be available from the local diveshops, for example.
* I’ll leave it to someone in the UK to check the price of the ferry from Newcastle to Bergen and to Kyrre to check the cost of flying from Oslo to Narvik. Over to you, folks! I would probably fly from Gothenburg to Oslo and then fly to Narvik with the UK people, assuming they decided to fly.
