I have always believed that the best holidays begin with something going slightly wrong, and our trip to Birkebeiner in Sjusjoen proved this theory beyond any doubt. We had flown into Oslo, collected our hire car, and set off north-east with that particular brand of overconfidence that comes from having Google Maps and a packet of wine gums. The plan was simple: follow the E6, turn off somewhere sensible, arrive in time for tea. What actually happened was that I misread a signpost near Lillehammer, convinced myself that a smaller road looked "more scenic," and promptly delivered us into a landscape of endless pine forest and increasingly desperate silence.

My partner, who had been dozing, woke to find us on a gravel track with no phone signal and a petrol gauge that suddenly seemed worth monitoring. I did what any sensible person would do and blamed the satnav. She did what any sensible person would do and opened the wine gums.

Here is the thing about getting properly lost in Hedmark, though: it is not frightening. It is almost embarrassingly beautiful. The forest closed around us like something from a fairy tale, all moss and birch and that particular quality of Norwegian light that makes everything look slightly enchanted. We passed a lake we could not name, then another, then a clearing where someone had left a pair of ancient skis leaning against a shed like a promise. We stopped to stretch our legs and heard nothing but wind and the occasional, distant sound of what I choose to believe was an elk rather than my stomach.

By the time we stumbled upon Sjusjoen proper, we had been travelling for nearly five hours instead of two. The village revealed itself gradually: first a cluster of red-painted cabins, then a shop, then the unmistakable shape of our own Birkebeiner property sitting among the trees with what I can only describe as patient Scandinavian expectation. It was not where we expected to find it. It was better.

The cabin itself had that particular quality of Norwegian holiday homes, where everything is built for actual living rather than show. The wood burner was already stocked with birch logs. The kitchen had a view of forest that made washing up feel almost spiritual. But what struck me most was the silence. Not the absence of sound, exactly, but a kind of active quiet, full of small movements: branches shifting, snow settling somewhere distant, the creak of timber as the evening cooled.

We unpacked badly, too tired to be organised, and I made the sort of meal that only tastes good after a minor ordeal: pasta with something from a jar, eaten at the kitchen table with the sort of appetite that proper cities never quite give you. My partner, who had every right to be cross, was instead paging through a leaflet she had found in the drawer, pointing out cross-country trails that started practically from our door. "We would never have found this if you'd done it properly," she said, which I choose to interpret as forgiveness.

That first evening, we walked without purpose, simply following a path that seemed to lead nowhere in particular. It took us to a small frozen pond we never managed to locate again, despite several attempts. We stood there as the light failed, watching the sky turn that particular violet that only happens in places with proper winter, and I felt something shift in my chest. I am not a person who seeks out silence. I am from Birmingham. But here, temporarily misplaced and slightly cold, I understood something about why people come to places like this and stay.

The mishap had become the memory. The wrong turn had delivered us to something we could not have planned. I still do not know the name of that gravel track, or the lake, or the pond. Perhaps it is better that way. Some discoveries only keep their magic if you cannot find them again.