I should have known the sat nav was up to no good when it tried to send me through what looked suspiciously like someone's back garden in central Jutland. There I was, pootling along in my hire car, convinced I was about to discover a secret shortcut to Hjarbaek Fjord, when a very Danish-looking chap emerged from his greenhouse to wave me back toward civilisation with the weary expression of a man who had clearly redirected many lost Britons before me.

Three U-turns and one deeply questionable farm track later, I finally spotted the water. The Limfjorden stretched out before me, all silvery-grey and shimmering, and I felt that lovely little flutter of holiday excitement mixed with relief that I had not become a local legend as "the English idiot in the Skoda."

The property sat perched near the fjord's edge, all clean Scandinavian lines and enormous windows that seemed to wink at the water. I tumbled out of the car, stretched my legs, and made a solemn vow: I would walk everywhere this week. Every muddy path, every coastal trail, every rambling route my slightly battered walking guide could offer. The Danish weather app had shown nothing but sunshine and optimism. I packed accordingly: one pair of walking boots, three pairs of socks, and a cagoule that I genuinely believed I would not need.

Reader, I needed it.

The first morning dawned bright and almost insultingly cheerful. I set off toward Hjarbaek itself, a proper little harbour village with boats bobbing about and that distinctive smell of rope and diesel and fresh air that makes you feel approximately forty percent more wholesome just for breathing it. The path wound along the shoreline, flat and forgiving, past reeds whispering in the breeze and the occasional determined fisherman who looked as though he had been standing in that exact spot since approximately 1987.

I walked for hours that day, smug as anything, returning with rosy cheeks and the kind of appetite that makes you eat an entire wheel of Danish cheese without a moment's regret.

Then the weather turned.

Not dramatically, not all at once. That would have been too kind. Instead, the sky performed what I can only describe as a slow grey sulk. Tuesday's walk to the nearby woods started under promising clouds and ended with me squelching home through what I initially mistook for a path but was, in fact, a drainage ditch. My supposedly waterproof trousers made a liar of their manufacturer. I stood in the property's excellent shower that evening, watching respectable amounts of Jutland mud spiral down the drain, and had my first proper think about what I was actually doing here.

I had come to walk, hadn't I? To stride about feeling accomplished and outdoorsy, to return with photographs of golden light on calm waters, to be that person who casually mentions "my morning hike" as though this were a normal and admirable habit. The rain had other ideas. And somewhere between wringing out my second pair of socks and accepting that my hair would simply remain in its new wild configuration, I realised I had a choice. I could sulk alongside the sky, or I could walk anyway.

So I did.

Wednesday brought horizontal drizzle and a path along the fjord that had transformed into something approaching a bog. I squelched and slipped and laughed at my own ridiculousness, passing no one, watching the water churn grey-green and purposeful. The wind tried to remove my hat approximately fourteen times. I developed what I can only describe as a combative relationship with a particularly aggressive gull near the marina.

Thursday offered brief, teasing sunshine that I chased like a hopeful spaniel, walking fast to make the most of it before the inevitable return of the gloom. I reached a little viewpoint I had been aiming for all week just as the clouds closed in again, and stood there grinning like an idiot at a landscape that had gone from picturesque to properly dramatic in the space of half an hour.

By Friday, my walking boots had given up any pretence of dryness. I had worn through my plasters, developed a small but meaningful blister, and discovered that Danish cake shops are excellent places to shelter from unexpected hail. I walked slower, looked more, stopped bothering to check the forecast because it had become essentially ornamental.

On my final morning, I woke to proper rain, the kind that sounds like someone is throwing gravel at the windows. I pulled on my damp boots, zipped my inadequate cagoule, and set off one last time along the fjord path. The water was almost black, the reeds bent double, and somewhere a curlew called with that lonely sound that makes you feel wonderfully small and temporary.

I got thoroughly, comprehensively soaked. Returned dripping, triumphant, slightly chastened by my own stubbornness. And sat in the enormous window with a cup of tea that never tasted better, watching the weather do whatever it pleased, knowing I had walked through all of it anyway.