I have never been very good at reading maps, which is a bold confession for someone who insists on self-catering holidays in places they have never visited. So it was that I found myself circling a roundabout near Stellendam three times, convinced the sat nav had developed a personal grudge against me. The third lap brought a moment of clarity: I had been turning right when I should have turned left, and also I had the sunroof open during a brief but enthusiastic rain shower. Nothing says "seasoned traveller" like arriving at your holiday cottage with a damp left elbow and the quiet dignity of a soggy Labrador.

The cottage itself, when I finally located it, sat tucked among similar low brick buildings near the harbour, the kind of unassuming architecture that makes you feel immediately at home. I dumped my bags with the theatrical exhaustion of someone who had just completed an expedition rather than a two-hour drive from Rotterdam, and stepped back outside to get my bearings. The air smelled of salt and something faintly fishy, which I chose to interpret as "authentic maritime character" rather than "I am downwind of the harbour at an unfortunate moment."

My plan, hatched in the optimistic haze of booking the trip during a heatwave back in June, had been to spend my days walking the coastline in glorious sunshine. I had packed accordingly: one pair of walking boots, three sun hats, and a bottle of suncream so large it required its own seatbelt. The reality of late August in Southern Holland, I quickly discovered, is rather more negotiable. The sky that first afternoon was doing something complicated, shifting from pale blue to determined grey and back again every twenty minutes, as if it could not quite commit to a mood.

I set off anyway, heading south along the coastal path with the determined stride of someone who refuses to let meteorological indecision ruin a perfectly good afternoon. The walking here is flat, which suits me, winding along dykes and through grassy stretches where sheep regarded me with the blank hostility of creatures who have seen too many optimistic hikers pass by. The Haringvliet estuary glimmered to my left, wide and grey-green, and I passed a few other walkers who nodded in that particular Dutch way - friendly but not intrusive, the nod of people who respect your right to exist and also your right to silence.

The rain caught me twenty minutes out, not the dramatic downpour of my roundabout adventure but a fine, persistent drizzle that somehow found every gap in my supposedly waterproof jacket. I took shelter in a small viewing hide overlooking the wetlands, joining a man with enormous binoculars who was watching something in the reeds with the intensity of a detective at a stakeout. "Osprey," he said, without looking at me. I nodded as if I too could identify birds of prey at two hundred metres, and we stood there in companionable silence while the rain patterned on the roof and something definitely bird-shaped flapped about in the distance.

By the time I squelched back to the cottage, the sun had emerged again, turning the wet pavements golden and making my earlier suffering feel faintly ridiculous. I changed into dry clothes and walked straight back out, because this is the lesson of Dutch coastal weather: it changes, it teases, it keeps you guessing, but it rarely stays truly awful for long. The evening light along the harbour was worth the damp socks, boats rocking gently against the quay, someone cooking something garlicky in a nearby house.

That first day taught me to stop fighting the forecast and start treating each walk as a negotiation. I learned to pack a proper rain cover, to check the sky every half hour, to appreciate the particular quality of light when sun breaks through cloud over flat water. I walked the same stretch of coast three times that week, and it looked different each time: grey and dramatic, then soft and hazy, then suddenly bright and full of unexpected warmth. The walking became less about reaching somewhere and more about staying open to whatever the weather decided to offer, which is either profound or simply what happens when you forget to bring enough indoor entertainment.

On my final morning, I woke to actual sunshine, the kind I had imagined all along. I walked north this time, towards Goeree-Overflakkee, the path busy with cyclists and families and the occasional serious runner. I passed a man fishing from the dyke, his line motionless in the water, and wondered if he too was just enjoying the excuse to stand still in good light. The air smelled of salt and warm grass, no fishy undertones this time, and I walked until my legs ached in that satisfying way that makes sitting down feel earned.

I never did use the suncream.