Four May’s ago in Reinfjord we skied powder to the beach whereas this time the trees were green and the snow was a twenty-minute or more walk up the mountain. The snow was good though and the welcome from our hosts Heidi and Jan-Tøre as warm as ever. It was nice to be back.
Once again Heidi produced the most delicious meals with impressive efficiency. She spent many years cooking for 90 hungry school pupils so the thirteen of us did not phase her. On our first evening we were treated to oven-baked cod on a bed of onions and carrots served with home-grown Golden Eye potatoes. Delicious. Heidi’s brother had caught seventeen cod in the fjord that day so the fish could not have been fresher.
Our Japanese friends were happy to ski but even more excited by the prospect of fishing. So on our final day, which was wet, that’s what we did. Initially we were to go out in groups of three with Jan-Tøre in his small open boat but Øysten was happy to take us in his and he could take 26! (That’s not a boat…..this is a boat). So we had plenty of space along with warmth and shelter from the rain. Øysten navigated us to the right spot where the lines were dropped to a depth of 150m and the fishing began. In no time we had landed seven cod up to 8kg in weight along with a number of Norwegian Saithe – also nice fish to eat. We left them with Øysten’s father who would gut and filet them to be shared amongst everyone in the village.
So the final day of the 2026 ski season was spent cod fishing in the rain which is definitely better than ski touring in the rain!