I have always believed that the best holidays begin with a small disaster, and our trip to Schonberg Im Lachtal in Styria proved me absolutely right. My partner and I had spent the better part of six months dreaming about Austrian mountain air, plotting walks through the Lachtal valley, and smugly researching the difference between our waterproof jackets. We were going to stride across alpine meadows like proper explorers, perhaps spot an edelweiss, and definitely return with thighs of steel and a newfound appreciation for nature.

The journey from Graz airport started well enough. We collected our hire car, smugly declined the sat nav upgrade because "we've got phones, haven't we," and promptly got lost in what I can only describe as a very determined fog somewhere near Judenburg. The mishap, when it came, was spectacularly stupid. Having finally found the turning for Lachtal, I pulled over to check directions, opened my door with rather too much enthusiasm, and watched in slow motion as my walking boot tumbled out and bounced straight down a drainage ditch. My left boot. Just the one. My partner sat in silence for what felt like several minutes before asking, with the patience of a saint who has reached her limit, whether I planned to hop around Styria like a deranged mountain goat.

We fished it out eventually, using a borrowed broom handle from a nearby farm shop whose owner seemed entirely unsurprised by dripping English tourists. Boot retrieved, dignity somewhat restored, we finally arrived at Schonberg Im Lachtal as afternoon light was doing that golden thing it does in valleys. And I must say, whatever foul mood I had brewed in myself simply evaporated. The property sits in proper countryside, surrounded by those rounded green mountains that look almost too soft to be real, with wooden farm buildings and the occasional cow bell clanking in the distance. Our chalet-style apartment had a balcony that faced straight up the valley, and I stood there in my mismatched socks, one boot still damp, feeling rather small and rather grateful.

The weather, of course, had been watching our arrival with amusement. We had packed for brisk alpine sunshine, the sort that makes walking pleasant and photographs flattering. Styria had other plans. The first morning dawned grey and spitty, the kind of rain that cannot commit to proper downpour but absolutely will soak you given half a chance. We set out anyway, because we are British and this is what we do. Our planned circuit up toward the Lachtal ski area, glorious in my imagination with wildflowers and panoramic views, became instead a squelching expedition through low cloud where visibility extended roughly to the end of my still-slightly-damp boot.

I found it rather marvellous, in truth. There is something about walking when you cannot see more than twenty yards that strips away any pretence of conquering nature. We were not explorers that morning. We were two slightly lost people in expensive jackets, following a muddy track through pine forest, listening to our own breathing and the odd suspicious rustle in the undergrowth. My partner observed that this was exactly like the Lake District, except with better signage and more alarming-looking slugs. She was not wrong.

By afternoon the rain had thickened into something more sincere, and we retreated to the apartment to plot our revenge on the weather. The next day promised improvement, and indeed delivered a window of pale sunshine that had us bolting from the door like released schoolchildren. We tackled the valley path toward Lassing, walking through proper alpine pasture where the grass actually sparkled with dew, and finally understood why people rave about Styrian scenery. The mountains here are not the dramatic jagged peaks of the western Alps; they are gentler, more welcoming somehow, rolling up in green waves that invite you to keep walking just to see what is over the next ridge.

The weather turned again by lunchtime, naturally, a sharp wind sweeping down the valley with what I can only describe as meteorological spite. We found shelter in a small Gasthaus in the village, where an elderly woman served us pumpkin seed soup that tasted of patience and autumn, and we sat steaming gently by the stove while she told us, in broken English and expansive gestures, about the proper walks we were missing because of our poor timing. I understood perhaps every third word but caught her essential meaning: come back in September, walk to the Kornock, see the larch trees turn gold. She made it sound like a promise.

The remainder of our stay became a sort of negotiation with the elements. We walked when we could, adapted when we could not. One morning we set out in promising conditions only to be caught in a hailstorm so sudden and theatrical that we laughed all the way back, heads down, hands clasped, feeling absurdly alive. Another afternoon, when proper rain settled in with apparent permanence, we simply walked the lower valley paths anyway, discovering that Styria in wet weather has its own muted beauty, all mist and dripping forest and the smell of earth waking up after winter.

I had arrived with a rigid vision of what our walking holiday would be, and Styria gently, persistently, taught me better. The British weather we thought we had escaped had followed us, or perhaps simply never left, and I realised somewhere between a squelched boot and a borrowed broom handle that this was precisely the point. Walking is not about conditions being perfect. It is about being outside, being slightly uncomfortable, being surprised by what you find when you stop demanding that the world conform to your itinerary.

On our final morning, the clouds lifted properly for the first time, revealing mountains I had not known were there, snow still clinging to the higher ridges though it was nearly May. We walked a short loop above the property, not far, just enough to say goodbye properly, and I stood on a small rise looking down at the valley with its patchwork of fields and forest, my boots finally both dry, my legs pleasantly tired, my partner slightly ahead as she always is on uphills. The wind was sharp but not cruel, carrying that clean smell of altitude and pine. I thought about the boot in the ditch, the hailstorm laughter, the pumpkin soup, the woman who had promised us golden larch trees. I thought about how I would definitely, absolutely, return in September, better prepared, perhaps slightly wiser, probably still capable of dropping my boot somewhere inappropriate.

Some holidays give you exactly what you expected, and I suppose those are fine enough. But Schonberg Im Lachtal gave me what I needed, which was a reminder that the best walks are the ones where you get a bit lost, a bit wet, and a bit more human than you were when you started.