The thing about driving to Nordseter is that you think you've got it sorted. Sat Nav, printed directions, the lot. And then you take one wrong turn somewhere after Lillehammer, convince yourself it's a shortcut, and suddenly you're on a gravel track wondering if you've accidentally driven into someone's farmyard. That was us, three hours in, me insisting we were "definitely still on the right road" while my other half sat there with that particular expression I'd seen before. The one that said nothing and everything.

We'd been aiming for this proper little cabin near Sjusjoen, one of those wooden places that looks like it's been there since the Vikings got bored of longboats. Novasol had the photos looking dead cosy, all pine interiors and a view that promised proper Norwegian wilderness. What we got first was a tour of rural Oppland that no guidebook bothers with.

Here's the funny thing though. That wrong turn took us past a lake so still it looked like someone had forgotten to render the reflection. No signs, no car park, just a pull-in where some previous lost soul had flattened the grass. We stopped because I needed to pretend I'd meant to come this way, and ended up sitting on a rock eating the emergency packet of biscuits we'd bought at the airport. Turned out to be the most peaceful twenty minutes of the whole trip. Not a soul about, just the odd bird calling across the water and the faint hum of nothing much at all.

Back on track eventually, thanks to a farmer who spoke about three words of English but managed to convey "you're idiots" through sheer eyebrow movement. The cabin itself was exactly what we'd hoped for, tucked among birch trees with that particular smell of old wood and cold air that hits you when you open the door. But by then I'd got a taste for the accidental.

Next morning, rather than follow the suggested walking route, we deliberately went the opposite way. Properly childish, I know. Just turned left where the leaflet said right. Within half an hour we'd found a stream tumbling over rocks that looked like they'd been arranged by someone showing off, little pools between them that caught the light like scattered coins. My other half, who'd been sceptical of my "getting lost is character building" philosophy, actually stopped talking for once. Just stood there listening to the water.

The whole week carried on like that. A path that petered out into marsh led us to a viewpoint over the valley that I reckon has never made it onto Instagram. A wrong turning on what was meant to be a gentle cycle became a trudge through heather that rewarded us with a half-ruined hut, some old summer farm building, with a view down to Lake Mjosa glinting in the distance. We never found it again, which sounds like a lie but isn't. I've got the muddy trainers to prove it.

There's something about this corner of Oppland that seems to reward the slightly incompetent. The proper organised stuff is there if you want it, the ski trails and the marked routes and all that. But the landscape itself seems to shrug and offer up its quiet corners to those who wander off script. Maybe it's the scale of the place, the way the forest just carries on being forest until you feel properly small.

I think what got me, sitting on that rock with my biscuits or puffing up some unmarked slope, was how rarely I let myself not know where I was going. Always a destination, a review to check, a route optimised. Getting properly lost, even just a bit lost, felt like remembering something I'd forgotten to make time for.

We left eventually, found the main road back to Lillehammer without too much drama. But I keep thinking about that lake, the one with no name we ever learned. Somewhere out there still, perfectly indifferent to whether anyone finds it or not. That's rather the point, I suppose.