I have never been so grateful for a wonky sat nav in all my life. There we were, me and my other half, trundling down the Croatian coast in our hire car, supposedly headed for a straightforward run to Crikvenica Jadranovo in Kvarner Bay, when the blessed thing decided we absolutely needed to see every back lane between Rijeka and the seaside. Three wrong turns, one near-miss with a goat, and a spectacular argument about whether to trust technology or a crumpled map later, we finally spotted the glimmer of the Adriatic through the pines. I may have done a small victory honk. He may have threatened to feed the sat nav to a fish.

The place itself, when we finally staggered out of the car, felt like one of those holiday moments where you forget the journey entirely. Our apartment sat perched above Jadranovo, that lovely little stretch of Kvarner Bay where the water does that impossible turquoise thing you normally only see on postcards you assume are Photoshopped. I dumped my bags, flung open the balcony doors, and stood there like a proper tourist, breathing in pine and salt and something that smelled suspiciously like someone grilling fish nearby. Heaven, basically. Or so I thought.

We had grand plans, you see. Grand walking plans. The kind of ambitious hiking itinerary you sketch out on a rainy Tuesday in Birmingham, convinced that Croatian sunshine will transform you into some sort of mountain goat person. The Kvarner coastline is criss-crossed with trails, and I had read somewhere, possibly while drinking wine, that the path from Jadranovo toward Dramalj was a gentle morning stroll with spectacular views. Gentle, the website said. Spectacular, it promised. Neither of those words adequately prepared me for what happened next.

We set off at dawn the first morning, full of that terrible British optimism that comes from seeing actual sunshine. The path started innocently enough, winding through olive groves with the sea winking below. Then it turned upward. Sharply upward. I am not built for sharply upward. My other half, annoyingly, strode ahead making encouraging noises while I developed what I can only describe as a personal relationship with every rock I had to haul myself over. The views, when I eventually stopped wheezing, genuinely were spectacular. Kvarner Bay spread out like someone had spilled blue ink between the islands, and for a moment I felt quite smug about our life choices.

Then the weather turned. Not dramatically, not cinematically, but in that sneaky British way I had foolishly thought we had left behind. One moment we were basking in sunshine; the next, a wind came barrelling down from the Velebit mountains that made me understand why the locals had built their houses so snugly into the hillside. We pressed on, because we are British and stubborn and had packed sandwiches. The sandwiches, I should note, became intimately acquainted with my jacket during a particularly enthusiastic gust near a cliff edge.

By day three, our hiking strategy had evolved from ambitious coastal conquering to what I termed "weather-responsive wandering." This mostly meant stepping outside, assessing the sky with the suspicious expertise of someone who has been rained on at too many music festivals, then choosing a direction based on which clouds looked least murderous. We became peculiarly attached to the little paths around Jadranovo itself, the ones that duck between holiday homes and suddenly deposit you on rocky coves where locals fish and tourists rarely bother to climb down. There is something wonderfully humbling about planning a grand trek and ending up pottering about twenty minutes from your apartment, discovering that the best mussels you have ever eaten come from a shack you would have marched straight past on your way to somewhere more impressive.

The rain proper arrived on our fourth day, which we spent in the apartment watching the bay disappear into grey, feeling rather pleased with ourselves for having squeezed in our walking while the sun lasted. I made coffee, stared at the weather, and had one of those moments of gentle self-reflection that holidays sometimes allow. I am terrible at admitting when plans need changing. I would have marched us up every mountain in a thunderstorm rather than accept defeat. Yet here, in this odd little pocket of Croatia, the weather had forced a kind of surrender that turned out better than any rigid itinerary. The walks we did take, shaped by wind and sudden showers, felt earned in a way that perfect sunshine never quite manages.

By the end of the week, we had walked less than planned and seen more than expected. The Kvarner paths, when we caught them in the right mood, gave us wild herbs underfoot and that particular silence of pine forests near the sea. When the weather closed in, we retreated to watch the changing light on the water from our balcony, or to wander down to Jadranovo's small harbour, where the fishing boats come in and the world slows to a pace I normally only achieve on strong medication.

We left the sat nav in the car, by the way. Some things, I have learned, are better navigated by instinct, stubbornness, and a willingness to change course when the wind demands it.