The thing about driving to Kvam in Vestland is that you think you've prepared, and then Norway gently reminds you that you haven't. We'd been on the road from Bergen for about an hour, winding through fjord country with the sort of scenery that makes you want to pull over every five minutes, when I confidently announced that I'd memorised the directions. My partner gave me that look. You know the one. The one that says, "We both know how this ends."

Sure enough, I took us down what I swore was the right turning and ended up on a farm track so narrow that a sheep looked at us with genuine pity. A full twenty minutes of reversing later, we finally found the actual lane to our holiday home, and I have never been so happy to see a wooden mailbox in my life.

The cottage itself sat just above the Hardangerfjord, and I mean *just* above. You could throw a stone and hear it think about hitting water before it actually did. First impression? It smelled of pine and something else I couldn't place, which turned out to be the neighbour's woodsmoke drifting through the open windows. The owners had left a note saying they'd "aired it out," which in Norwegian apparently means "left it to become one with the elements." I loved it immediately.

We dumped our bags and did what any sensible person does after a three-hour journey and one minor agricultural incident: we went for a wander with absolutely no plan whatsoever. This, as it turned out, was the best decision we made all week.

There's a path behind the cottage that doesn't appear on any map we found, unless you count the one drawn in biro on the back of the welcome leaflet. It starts between two birch trees and looks for all the world like it leads to someone's compost heap. Follow it for ten minutes, though, and it opens onto a small shingle beach where the fjord laps against stones worn smooth as glass. We sat there for an hour watching a heron fish with the patience of a creature that has never once worried about motorway directions.

The next morning, still refusing to consult a proper map out of sheer stubbornness, we took a left where the road suggested right and found ourselves climbing through what I can only describe as a tunnel of wildflowers. I'm no botanist, but the colours were ridiculous, like someone had gone at the hillside with a paintbox. At the top, panting and feeling rather pleased with ourselves, we discovered a bench facing the fjord. No plaque, no name, no indication of who put it there or why. Just a perfect view and a slight smell of sheep, which by then felt like coming home.

Getting properly lost became our daily ritual. We found a waterfall that isn't in the guidebooks, or at least not the English ones, tumbling down a rock face so covered in moss it looked like something from a fantasy novel. We found a small pier where local lads were fishing for mackerel, who let us have a go and laughed when I tangled the line within seconds. We found a cafe in what appeared to be someone's front room, serving waffles with brunost that I'm still thinking about.

The thing is, I could tell you about the Hardanger Folk Museum or the glacier museum at Fjaerland, both lovely and both within reach. But honestly? The bits I remember are the ones we stumbled into by accident. The hidden beach where we ate sandwiches and got rained on. The viewpoint we reached by following a stream because it "looked interesting." The moment I realised that my terrible sense of direction, usually the bane of my existence, had become something of a superpower.

On our last evening, we found ourselves on a rocky outcrop somewhere above the cottage, not entirely sure how we'd got there and even less sure how to get back. The sun was doing that thing it does in Norwegian summers, hanging about for hours in a way that feels almost apologetic for December. We watched it dip towards the mountains and I thought about how I'd stressed over routes and bookings and whether I'd packed enough socks.

The mishap with the farm track felt like weeks ago. Actually, it felt like a gift. Without it, I'd have trusted my own navigation, stuck to the main roads, missed all of it. Sometimes the wrong turning is exactly the right one.

We found our way back eventually, though I'll admit the last stretch involved a fence that was technically climbable and a brief debate about trespassing laws. The cottage was warm, the woodsmoke was waiting, and I already knew I'd spend the journey home plotting how soon we could return to get lost there again.