I have never been so relieved to see a wooden cabin in my entire life. Fourteen hours after leaving Manchester, there I was, standing in a Hordaland lay-by with a hire car full of luggage, a phone that had decided Norway was not its jurisdiction, and the distinct realisation that I had been confidently following directions to a completely different village. Ulvik, it turns out, is not spelled with an "F". No one had told me. No one had needed to.

The drive from Bergen had been spectacular enough to make me forgive myself, which is saying something. Those fjord roads wind about like a toddler's drawing, all impossible curves and sudden glimpses of water so still it looked like someone had forgotten to render the graphics. I kept pulling over, taking the same photo repeatedly, convincing myself each viewpoint was marginally superior. They were not. But when you have been awake since four in the morning, aesthetic discernment takes a back seat to simply staying on the correct side of the road.

The mishap, though. I had stopped at what I thought was a charming local shop for supplies, armed with my three Norwegian phrases and excessive optimism. I emerged with brown cheese, which I do not like, and something labelled in such cryptic lettering that I still cannot identify it. The bag split in the car park. The brown cheese survived. The mystery item did not, splattering across my boot in a manner that suggested organic decay. I stood there, in the thin Hordaland drizzle, laughing like a man who had completely lost the plot. A woman walked past with her dog. The dog looked concerned. Fair enough.

By the time I actually found Vallavik, the light was doing that extraordinary Norwegian thing where it hangs about for hours, neither fully day nor properly evening, just this generous golden suspension. The cabin sat above the fjord with the kind of quiet confidence that immediately makes you feel your own noise is excessive. I could hear water somewhere, and what I later learned was a sheep with opinions, but mostly just the particular silence of a place that has not been waiting for you specifically but accommodates you nonetheless.

I fumbled with the key box. This is tradition for me. There is always a code, and there is always a moment where I convince myself I have been scammed and will be sleeping in the hire car with the brown cheese. Then the lock clicked, and the door opened onto that particular smell of Norwegian holiday accommodation: wood, something faintly maritime, and the ghost of a thousand previous guests' cooking attempts.

The living room window framed the fjord like a painting someone had hung slightly too low. I stood there with my unopened suitcase, my cheese-stained boot, and a cup of tea made with a kettle I had located through pure instinct. Outside, a small boat puttered past, its engine sound carrying perfectly across the water then dissolving into nothing. I thought about the journey, the wrong turn, the exploded foodstuff, the concerned dog. I thought about how I would remember this particular exhaustion more vividly than smoother arrivals.

The sheep had more to say. I answered it through the window, something noncommittal. It seemed satisfied, or perhaps just surprised into silence. Either way, I took it as endorsement. The mystery item was still on my boot. The brown cheese awaited its fate in the fridge. And the fjord sat there, indifferent and magnificent, waiting for whatever I might manage tomorrow after some actual sleep.