I have never been so grateful for a pair of worn-in walking boots in all my life, and I say that as someone who once wore flip-flops to a wedding. The journey to Makarska Bratus began with the sort of optimism that only a British person booking a Croatian hiking holiday in late September can muster. I had packed three weather apps, two of which promised "unbroken sunshine," and one which I suspect was just showing me pictures from July.

The small but funny mishap arrived before I did. Somewhere between Split Airport and the Central Dalmatian Riviera, I managed to leave my carefully prepared walking rucksack on the airport bus. Not my phone, not my passport, not even the embarrassing novel I was hiding from everyone. No, I abandoned the one bag containing my waterproof jacket, my maps, and enough trail mix to feed a small scout troop. I realised this halfway down the coastal road, watching the bus shrink in the rear-view mirror like a bad decision. The taxi driver found this hilarious. I found it less so, though I did admire his commitment to pointing and laughing for a full kilometre.

Makarska Bratus itself sits in that glorious stretch of coastline where the Biokovo mountains glower down at the Adriatic like a stern grandparent at a family party. The property is one of those understated stone affairs that the Croatians do so well, all terracotta and shutters and the sort of quiet that makes you realise how loudly you breathe. I arrived flustered, under-equipped, and already composing the angry email to my future self about checking the bus seat.

The first morning dawned with the kind of blue sky that makes you forgive airports everything. I set off for the Biokovo Nature Park with borrowed enthusiasm and a plastic poncho from the local konoba, which the owner insisted I take "just in case." I smiled politely. British people are excellent at smiling politely while privately dismissing local weather advice.

The trail up from Makarska starts gently enough, winding through olive groves where the trees look older than my family tree. I walked for perhaps two hours in perfect conditions, sweating pleasantly, congratulating myself on my foresight in bringing the poncho which was clearly unnecessary ballast. The views back towards the riviera were obscene, all turquoise and terracotta and little boats bobbing about like toys in a bath. I stopped for what I believe the hiking community calls "a sit down" and ate a sandwich that had achieved room temperature several hours previously.

Then the weather turned.

Not gradually, not with polite warning, but with the sudden theatricality of a stage manager who has been waiting for their moment. One moment I was photographing a lizard; the next I was inside a cloud that appeared to be moving horizontally with malicious intent. The rain arrived in sheets, then in curtains, then in whatever comes after curtains when the meteorologist has run out of domestic metaphors. My poncho, that flimsy piece of local wisdom I had so arrogantly dismissed, became my most treasured possession. I wrestled it on while being battered by what felt like the entire Adriatic, repurposed as airborne assault.

I squelched back down to Makarska Bratus some four hours later, having abandoned the summit attempt somewhere around the point where I could no longer see my own feet. The property's terrace, so inviting that morning, now offered a front-row seat to nature's temper tantrum. I stood there, dripping onto the stone, and felt something shift. Not enlightenment exactly, more the gentle realisation that I had spent fifteen years of adult holidays chasing perfect conditions, and perhaps the imperfect ones had more to teach me. Or at least more to mock me with.

The next three days brought more of the same meteorological chaos. I walked in drizzle, in downpours, in that peculiar mist that somehow gets you wetter than proper rain. I explored the coastal path towards Bratus village, where fishermen shrugged at the weather with the resignation of people who have never trusted a forecast in their lives. I hiked up to the Sv. Jure chapel in conditions that can only be described as "moistly atmospheric," the sort of phrase British people invent to salvage dignity from discomfort.

Each evening I returned to Makarska Bratus with sodden boots and a growing appreciation for the property's excellent drying facilities. The owner, who by now found my daily weatherbeaten appearances genuinely amusing, would produce rakija and stories of worse storms, worse walkers, worse decisions made in better visibility. I began to enjoy the rhythm of it, the negotiation with elements I could not control, the small triumph of completing any walk at all.

On my final morning, inevitably, the sun returned. I walked one last coastal path in perfect golden light, dry for the first time in days, and found myself slightly disappointed. The mountains looked beautiful, certainly, but somehow less alive than they had in the murk and the wet. I had come expecting to conquer trails and photograph vistas, and instead had spent a week being humbled by water vapour.

I collected my abandoned rucksack from Split Airport on the way home, incidentally. It had been handed in by a cleaner who found it "very heavy for someone who clearly needed help." I smiled at this, Britishly, and did not disagree.