I have never been so grateful to see a wooden bench in my entire life. After a flight to Oslo, a train to Drammen, and what felt like a very scenic eternity on a winding bus through Buskerud, I finally reached the turnoff for the Raje. The tiny mishap? I had spent the last forty minutes convinced I was on the wrong bus, frantically checking my phone with 4% battery, only to realise I had been reading the timetable upside down since Hokksund. Not my finest hour.

The walk from the bus stop was only supposed to take ten minutes. It took twenty, mostly because I kept stopping to gawp at the landscape. The hills roll here in that particular Norwegian way, all soft and green and slightly intimidating, like nature's way of reminding you that you are very small and your urban anxieties even smaller. I had packed for every weather eventuality because a colleague warned me that Buskerud in late spring could deliver four seasons before lunch. My rucksack weighed approximately the same as a small car.

The Raje itself appeared suddenly, tucked between birch trees with their pale bark catching the afternoon light. It is a traditional wooden cabin, the sort that makes you immediately want to use words like "quaint" and then hate yourself slightly for doing so. Red paint, white trim, a small deck that looked out towards nothing but trees and the distant suggestion of a valley. I stood there for a moment, still holding my ridiculous oversized bag, and felt something in my shoulders actually drop. I cannot remember the last time that happened.

The key was in the lockbox exactly where the instructions said, which surprised me more than it should have. I am the sort of person who expects minor administrative failures to follow me on holiday. The door creaked in that satisfyingly authentic way, not the theatrical creak of a horror film but the comfortable sound of something well-used and well-loved. The smell hit me next: wood smoke, something faintly herbal, and that particular clean scent that seems to exist only in Scandinavian cabins where people take their ventilation seriously.

Inside was simpler than I expected and better for it. A compact kitchen with a proper coffee pot, which I noted with the urgency of a caffeine addict who had survived on airport coffee since five that morning. A wood-burning stove dominated the main room, surrounded by furniture that looked like it had been chosen for sitting in properly rather than for photographability. I ran my hand along the table and it was slightly tacky with wood oil, that lived-in quality that no amount of boutique hotel styling can replicate.

I made the coffee immediately, badly, because I had forgotten that Norwegian coffee strengths require a certain respect. It was bitter enough to make my eyes water. I took it outside anyway, wrapped in the one sensible jumper I had packed, and sat on that blessed bench. A bird I could not identify sang from somewhere in the birches. The light was doing that prolonged golden thing it does at this latitude, stretching the afternoon into something that felt generous rather than endless.

I thought about the timetable, still upside down in my pocket, and laughed properly for the first time in weeks. Some mistakes lead you exactly where you need to be.