I should have known the Sat Nav was up to no good when it tried to send me through what looked suspiciously like a farmer's back garden somewhere near Quedlinburg. Three hours from Hanover Airport, my hire car and I had developed a strained relationship, mostly because I kept pronouncing "Thale" wrong and it refused to admit we were both lost.

The mishap came at a roundabout just outside the town. I was so busy marvelling at a hillside that looked like it had been lifted straight from a Brothers Grimm illustration that I missed my exit entirely. Twice. The third time round, a local in a sensible Volvo waved me through with the patient expression of someone who has watched many British drivers circle like confused pigeons. I waved back with what I hoped looked like cheerful competence rather than mild panic.

The property sat where the Bode Valley narrows, and I will confess to an undignified little gasp when I finally pulled up. The Harz has that effect. You expect hills, certainly, but the sudden drama of those forested slopes pressing in from both sides feels almost theatrical, as if the landscape is showing off deliberately. My cottage - a solid, unpretentious affair with timber framing that looked like it had been there since people first decided walking uphill was character-building - promised exactly the sort of no-nonsense comfort I needed after my navigational humiliation.

I dumped my bags with the enthusiasm of someone who had been sitting in various modes of transport for roughly eleven hours and immediately committed my first rookie error. The weather, you see, had been doing that peculiar German thing where the sky looks thoroughly threatening but delivers nothing more than theatrical glowering. I glanced up, noted the heavy grey, thought "typical British summer really," and set off for what I had planned as a gentle afternoon stroll to explore the Hexentanzplatz.

Reader, I was back within forty minutes, somewhat dampened in both spirit and actual water content.

The Harz weather had been waiting for precisely this moment of British overconfidence. What started as spitty, half-hearted drizzle transformed with theatrical speed into something that felt personally directed. I squelched back to the cottage, past the chairlift station that in better conditions carries visitors up to the plateau, and spent the remainder of that first evening drying my "waterproof" jacket in front of a radiator that clanked with what I chose to interpret as sympathetic solidarity.

The morning brought that particular clarity that follows mild disaster. I studied the local walking maps with the focused attention of someone who has learned humility, and adjusted my plans with the flexibility that the Harz demands. The weather here does not cooperate with itineraries; it cooperates with those who pay attention. I set out later, better equipped, for a lower valley walk along the Bode River where the gorge narrows dramatically and the mist hung in that atmospheric way that almost justified my previous soaking.

The path to the Rosstrappe rock formation became my compromise ambition - achievable, dramatic, and mercifully equipped with a cafe halfway where I could perform emergency cake-based morale recovery. The legend of the witch's leap across the gorge seemed suddenly more plausible when I contemplated the gap myself, though I suspect the actual witch had better boots and considerably more local knowledge than I possessed.

Each day became a negotiation with the elements. Mornings of genuine sunshine had me striding out towards the Treseburgburg waterfall with unjustified optimism, only to find myself retreating from afternoon fog so thick I could barely locate my own feet. I developed what I can only describe as a weather-based personality, becoming unreasonably cheerful at partial cloud break and muttering darkly at anything resembling a cumulonimbus formation.

The chairlift to Hexentanzplatz finally happened on my fourth attempt, on an afternoon when the clouds lifted with theatrical timing to reveal the view I had been promised. The plateau stretches out with that particular quality of northern German landscape, wooded and rolling rather than dramatically alpine, but possessed of a quiet, ancient character that rewards patience. I walked the easier paths up there, past the Walpurgishalle museum with its witchy folklore, and felt properly smug about my persistence.

My final full day brought the walk I had been saving. The Selke Valley railway path, following the old line through increasingly wild country, demanded the full day and rewarded it with the sort of solitude that makes you talk to yourself just to confirm you still exist. The weather held with that teasing unpredictability I had come to expect, offering sunshine through beech canopy, sudden showers that had me crouching under overhangs like a damp squirrel, and finally that particular golden light that photographers chase and walkers simply feel fortunate to witness.

I returned to my cottage each evening with the particular satisfaction of legs that have done proper work, boots that have earned their keep, and a growing appreciation for the Harz's refusal to make things easy. The British weather comparison, I realised, was lazy thinking. This was something more specific, more local, more demanding of actual engagement rather than resigned endurance.

On my last morning, I packed with the methodical slowness of someone not quite ready to leave. The Sat Nav and I had reached an understanding of sorts, though I still suspect it of harbouring grudges. I took one final walk, barely twenty minutes, just to the edge of town where the hills begin their proper rise, and stood there feeling pleasantly insignificant against that landscape.

The weather, naturally, was perfect.