The thing about driving to Vestvikvagen is that you think you've got it sorted until a sheep decides your bonnet looks like a lovely place to loiter. There I was, pootling along a narrow lane somewhere northwest of Bergen, congratulating myself on remembering to drive on the right, when this woolly obstacle appeared from behind a rock and fixed me with the most unimpressed stare I've ever received from livestock. I stopped. It stared. We had a moment. Then it wandered off, presumably to tell its mates about the idiot Brit in the hire car.

That set the tone rather nicely for the rest of the week.

I'd booked a waterside cottage through Novasol, partly because the photos showed a deck that practically dangled over the fjord, and partly because the name Vestvikvagen sounded properly Scandinavian and I fancied pretending I was in a crime drama. The reality, when I finally found the place after a few wrong turns that Google Maps optimistically called "shortcuts," was better than any Nordic noir. The cottage sat low against the hillside, red paint weathered to that perfect shade that makes everything look intentional, and the water below was doing that impossible turquoise thing that Norwegian fjords specialise in.

My first morning, I decided to "explore the local area," which is travel-writer code for getting hopelessly lost and pretending it was deliberate. I set off along what I thought was a coastal path and ended up in someone's garden, where an elderly chap was splitting wood with the kind of effortless rhythm that made my gym membership feel deeply fraudulent. He didn't speak English, I don't speak Norwegian, but we managed a splendid conversation about potatoes through gestures and enthusiastic nodding. He pointed me toward a track behind his shed, and that's where things got properly interesting.

The path climbed steeply through birch forest, the kind where sunlight filters through in patches and everything smells of sap and something indefinably clean. I kept expecting to emerge onto a road or another cottage, but instead the trees opened onto a small lake I'd never have found otherwise. No signposts, no car park, no gift shop. Just water so still it looked like you could step onto it, surrounded by rocks that someone had clearly been using as a fishing spot for decades. I sat there for an hour, eating the emergency chocolate I'd packed and feeling smug about my accidental discovery.

Later that week, I got lost again trying to find a supposedly straightforward viewpoint. Took a left where I should have continued straight, ended up on a gravel track that narrowed to something a bicycle would find ambitious. The track dead-ended at a tiny beach, more pebbles than sand, with a single weathered boathouse leaning against the shore. Someone had left a folding chair outside, facing the water, and I couldn't resist. Sat there until the light started going, watching a heron work the shallows with the patience I lack in most areas of my life.

The thing is, I'd planned none of this. My original itinerary included proper hikes, a ferry to somewhere notable, perhaps a museum. Instead I spent most of the week wandering vaguely, getting misdirected by sheep, and finding places that don't appear on any recommendation list. There's something humbling about realising your best moments come from complete incompetence at navigation.

On my final evening, I walked from the cottage to what the map called a "local landmark" and promptly missed the turning. Found myself on a ridge above Vestvikvagen instead, looking down at the cottage lights starting to come on, the fjord darkening to ink, and the mountains on the far side losing their detail in the dusk. A fishing boat puttered past, slow and purposeful. I stood there until I needed a torch to get back, thinking about how I'd arrived convinced I needed to see everything, and was leaving grateful I'd seen almost nothing I'd intended to.

The sheep was right about me, obviously. But being a bit lost suits some places better than being certain ever could.