I should have known the Sat Nav was plotting against me when it insisted "Thale" rhymed with "whale." It does not. It rhymes with "taller" without the R, which I discovered three hours too late, somewhere near a field of very judgmental cows outside Wernigerode. By the time I finally rolled up to the holiday home in Thale, I had seen more of the Harz than I'd planned, developed a profound hatred for roundabouts, and somehow acquired a bag of boiled sweets from a petrol station that tasted of regret and artificial lemon.

The property sits on the edge of town, and I use "town" generously. Thale is more of a village that got ideas. The house itself looked exactly like the photos, which never happens. White walls, dark timber framing, that slightly smug look of German architecture that knows it'll outlast whatever you build next door. I fumbled with the key safe, dropped the code twice, and nearly knocked myself out on the low beam above the front door. Welcome to the Harz.

Inside smelled of pine and something faintly medicinal, probably the cleaning products. The living room had one of those wood-burning stoves that city people like me romanticise until they realise they have no idea how to work it. I spent twenty minutes arranging kindling like I was building a tiny bonfire for woodland creatures, then discovered the matches were in a drawer I had already checked three times. Classic.

The next morning I decided to "explore." This is where things went properly sideways in the best possible way. I had a vague notion of finding the Bodetal, that dramatic river gorge everyone mentions. Instead I took a wrong turn almost immediately, following a path that started promisingly enough before narrowing to something a rabbit would hesitate on. The signage, when it existed, had been vandalised by weather and possibly goats.

I found myself in a clearing with a bench that looked older than my grandmother and a view of absolutely nothing in particular. Just trees and more trees and the faint suggestion that civilisation had once existed somewhere. I sat down, mostly because my calves were threatening mutiny, and that's when I heard it. Water. Not the dramatic waterfall I was supposedly near, but something smaller, persistent, almost secret.

Following sound rather than sense, I pushed through some very rude brambles and found a stream cutting through moss-covered rocks, no wider than my outstretched arms. No path led there. No sign pointed the way. It just existed, quietly, while the rest of the Harz tourist machine churned elsewhere. I sat on a rock that was definitely going to ruin my walking trousers and watched a dipper bird doing its ridiculous bobbing dance in the current. Twenty minutes. Forty. I have no idea. My phone had died hours ago, another blessing in disguise.

Getting back took longer than getting lost. I emerged onto a road I didn't recognise, followed it past a farm where an elderly man waved at me like my appearance was completely normal, and eventually stumbled into a village called Allrode that I am still not entirely convinced was on any map I had seen. A bakery there sold me a slice of Bienenstich that I ate standing in their car park, feeling like the most successful failure in Lower Saxony.

That evening, back at the house, I managed the stove on my third attempt. The smoke alarm only went off once, a personal best. I sat with wine that cost less than water would at home and thought about how thoroughly my plans had unravelled, and how little I minded. The Harz doesn't reward intention, I decided. It rewards the people who miss their turning, who follow streams to nowhere, who end up in villages that may or may not exist.

I still haven't seen the main Bodetal waterfall properly. Maybe tomorrow. Or maybe I'll get lost again and find something else entirely.