You can often find me over on this little corner of the internet, waxing lyrical about the various vehicles that whizz us around our city. From tubes and trams to buses and bikes, my transport-related ramblings have made it pretty clear over the years that I have a fairly sizeable soft spot for London’s nifty network of transport. But today, I’m going to be pushing the boat out, as I come bearing some ferry good news.
A ferry service that used to link Newcastle and the Norwegian city of Bergen could soon be making the ultimate comeback. For over 140 years, passengers could hop aboard a boat in Newcastle and be – well… ferried across the North Sea, but the route was closed by its operator (DFDS) back in 2008 due to rising oil costs. Now, almost two decades after the service shut up shop (yes, I’m as horrified as you are that 2008 was nearly 20 years ago), a potential route revival could be in the pipeline.
Earlier this year, Newcastle City Council revealed that they were exploring ways in which they could potentially resurrect the much-loved route, and bring it back into service. Newcastle City Council Leader, Karen Kilgour, said back in January: “we’d also love to see the return of the ferry, which stopped running in 2008. We know that lots of people in both cities have fond memories of travelling by sea to visit both Newcastle and Bergen.”
Admittedly, there hasn’t been a great deal in the way of updates since the start of the year. No official operator, vessel, timetable, or launch date has yet been confirmed. But surely if we talk about it enough, we’ll just manifest it back into existence, right?
Bergen is the second largest city in Norway, and is commonly hailed ‘the Gateway to the Fjords’ due to the fact that it’s a rather spectacular starting point for those that wish to explore the UNESCO-listed (and utterly gorgeous) Norwegian Fjords. Newcastle and Bergen boast a long-standing relationship that dates all the way back to the Second World War – and the two cities have been officially twinned since 1968.
Whilst, of course, the journey by sea is significantly longer than the flight, the ferry is not only more environmentally friendly; it’s also great for those of us who aren’t quite so fond of plane-travel. Back in January, Karen Kilgour said: “while at this point operators consider the route isn’t economically viable, we’ll continue to work with partners and our friends in Bergen to explore all ways of bringing it back”.
