I should have known the sat-nav was up to no good the moment it tried to send me up what looked like a goat's personal driveway. There I was, three hours out of Alesund, convinced I was being clever by taking the scenic route along the Rv70 towards Vagstranda. The fjord views were doing their usual Norwegian trick of making me feel tiny and insignificant, which I rather enjoy on holiday, when the robotic voice announced I had reached my destination. I had not. I was outside someone's shed, and a very unimpressed sheep was my only welcome committee.

Turning round on a Norwegian mountain road in a hire car slightly wider than my garage back in Leeds is not an activity I would recommend to anyone with a nervous disposition or a full bladder. After twenty minutes of reversing with what I can only describe as agricultural precision, I found the actual turn-off to the Vagstranda property. The gravel crunched beneath the wheels in that deeply satisfying way that announces you have officially left civilisation behind.

The cabin sat there like something from a postcard I would normally dismiss as Photoshopped. Red wooden walls, white trim, and a view of Romsdalsfjorden that made me forget entirely about the sat-nav betrayal. I stepped out of the car and immediately discovered that Norwegian gravel driveways have a personal vendetta against anyone wearing city shoes. My left foot found a patch of something suspiciously mossy, and I performed a little dance that I am sure the neighbouring mountains will remember for years.

Inside, the smell of pine hit me like a friendly slap. The place had that particular quality of Norwegian holiday homes where everything is simultaneously rustic and somehow more functional than my entire house. I dumped my bags with the enthusiasm of a man who has been driving for six hours and made straight for the kettle, because I am British and that is what we do when overwhelmed by scenery.

I had intended to spend the first evening planning activities. Guidebooks spread across the table, phone loaded with recommendations, the whole organised tourist routine. Instead I found myself on the small wooden jetty belonging to the property, clutching a mug of tea that was going cold because I kept forgetting to drink it. The fjord water lay there like spilled ink, and somewhere across the way a light flickered from what I assumed was another solitary cabin. No traffic noise. No planes overhead. Just the occasional sound of something plopping into water that I chose to believe was a fish rather than whatever actually lives in Norwegian fjords.

The gentle self-reflection crept up on me, as it tends to when you stop moving for five minutes. I had packed four books, hiking boots with the price tags still on, and ambitious plans to tick off every viewpoint within striking distance. Yet here I was, utterly content doing absolutely nothing on a slightly wobbly jetty, wearing shoes that would never recover from their earlier moss encounter. Perhaps, I thought, the whole point of places like Vagstranda is not what you do but what you stop doing.

Tomorrow I would explore properly, I told myself. There would be waterfalls and perhaps that famous Trollstigen road if I felt ambitious. But for now, the sheep had forgiven me, the tea had gone properly cold, and the fjord was doing all the entertainment necessary. Some arrivals, I decided, are best measured not by what you find but by what finds you when you finally stop looking.