The ferry from Bittenfelt to Mommark was meant to be the easy bit of the journey. I had already navigated the motorways of Jutland, survived a questionable service station hot dog, and convinced myself that my Danish pronunciation of "Mommark" sounded passable. It did not, as the ferry attendant's polite wince confirmed. But the real comedy came as I rolled off the boat and promptly followed my sat nav straight into a dead end by the marina, where a very patient local on a bicycle had to physically turn me around while I performed a seventeen-point turn in front of three fishermen who definitely had better things to do.

By the time I reached the holiday home, my arrival had already achieved the chaotic energy I normally reserve for Christmas mornings. The property sat tucked among trees near the coast, a traditional Danish summerhouse with weathered wood and that particular stillness you only find in places where the sea is never far away. I dumped my bags, flung open the door to the terrace, and was immediately met by a horizontal rain that had not featured in any forecast I had checked. British weather had apparently followed me across the North Sea like an unwanted pen pal.

I had packed for walking. Proper walking. My rucksack bulged with Ordnance Survey habits translated poorly into Danish terrain, complete with waterproofs I now doubted and a flask of tea that suddenly felt like the most sensible thing I owned. The rain paused briefly, as if considering its options, and I bolted for the coastal path like a woman who had spotted a gap in the traffic.

The trail from Mommark towards the southern tip of Als is properly lovely when you can see it. I managed perhaps twenty minutes of glorious, smug striding before the sky performed its second act of the afternoon. The drizzle became something more committed, then something biblical. My so-called breathable jacket surrendered immediately. I found myself squelching along a stretch of meadow near the shore, realising with the slow horror of experience that I had committed the classic British walker error: assuming weather would behave because you had planned something.

I turned back, not defeated exactly, but certainly negotiating. The path had become a minor water feature. My boots, veterans of the Lake District, made noises I had never heard before. A heron watched me retreat with what I can only describe as professional detachment.

The following morning brought fog so thick I could barely locate the terrace I had so optimistically flung open the day before. I drank my tea and studied the local map like a general planning a campaign that had already gone wrong. The weather cleared marginally by mid-morning, and I set out again with the cautious optimism of someone who has been burned but not yet learned.

This time I headed inland, following tracks through farmland and patches of woodland where the damp had turned everything impossibly green. The walking here is gentler than the dramatic coastlines I had imagined, rolling and agricultural, with sudden glimpses of the sea between hills. I passed through Kegnaes without seeing another soul, which felt either peaceful or slightly post-apocalyptic depending on my mood.

By afternoon the wind had picked up properly, coming in off the Little Belt with intentions that felt personal. I found a sheltered spot among some low trees and ate my squashed sandwich while contemplating the essential absurdity of travelling somewhere for walking holidays and then complaining about the walking conditions. This is, I realised, a peculiarly British form of holiday satisfaction: the mild suffering, the stoic picnic, the eventual return to warmth that feels earned rather than merely arrived at.

The final day brought the weather I had imagined all along, bright and clear and entirely too late for my drying washing. I managed a proper stretch along the eastern shore, watching the water and feeling briefly like the competent outdoorswoman I had pretended to be. Then the clouds regrouped for a final encore, and I squelched home one last time, already laughing at myself.

I never did master saying Mommark properly. But I left with boots that will never be the same and a renewed appreciation for flasks of tea, which turns out to be exactly the kind of holiday I should have expected.