The SatNav gave up on us about twenty minutes outside Stavanger, which I suppose should have been my first clue that this trip would involve a certain amount of creative navigation. My partner, ever the optimist, declared that we were "embracing the spirit of adventure" as we trundled down yet another gravel track flanked by weather-beaten stone walls. I was less philosophical, particularly after a sheep with an impressive set of horns gave me what I can only describe as a withering look through the passenger window.

We were bound for a holiday let near Eigeroy, just outside Egersund in Rogaland, a part of Norway I had previously known nothing about beyond the fact that it featured prominently in a brochure I had idly flicked through during a particularly grey Tuesday in Manchester. The property promised sea views, traditional charm, and something called "authentic coastal living," which I took to mean there would be excellent fish and possibly a draft.

The mishap, when it came, was spectacularly undramatic. We had followed a sign pointing towards Eigeroy, only to discover that the road narrowed to something approaching a generous footpath. My partner, who had been driving with the misplaced confidence of someone who once managed a caravan in the Lake District, continued gamely until we reached a small wooden bridge with a weight limit that our modest hire car technically exceeded by approximately the weight of a large Labrador. Reversing back up a single-track road with a sheer drop to one side and an audience of increasingly judgmental seabirds took twenty minutes and most of my dignity. We eventually found the proper turning, which was helpfully marked by a red-painted boathouse that we had somehow missed despite its being visible from approximately three counties.

The cottage itself sat perched above a small cove, painted the obligatory Norwegian red with white trim, looking for all the world like something from a postcard I would later feel obliged to send my mother. The key was in a lockbox, the code for which I had written on my phone, which had helpfully died somewhere around our third wrong turn. Cue another twenty minutes of increasingly frantic button-pressing before I remembered I had also emailed it to myself, and could access this via my partner's device, which had survived by virtue of being in a different pocket.

Stepping inside, the first thing that struck me was the smell: wood smoke and salt air, with something underneath that I eventually identified as dried fish hanging in the small utility room. The living area featured a wood-burning stove, comfortable if slightly sagging furniture, and windows that framed the North Sea in a way that made my previous photographic efforts with my phone seem deeply inadequate. I immediately took seventeen pictures, none of which captured it.

But it was the getting lost that defined those first days, and I am now genuinely grateful for it. With the SatNav firmly retired to the glove compartment, we set out on foot with nothing more than a paper map from the tourist information and a shared determination to wander. The first accidental discovery came on our initial morning, when a path that looked like it led to the beach instead climbed steadily through low scrub and emerged at a small lighthouse, automated now and slightly forlorn, surrounded by wildflowers and the relentless sound of gulls. We sat on the rocks for an hour, watching a fishing boat make its slow progress towards Egersund harbour, and I felt something in my shoulders release that I had not realised was clenched.

Another wrong turning, this time on bicycles we had hired from a cheerful man in Egersund who spoke excellent English and laughed openly at our map, took us to a pebble beach where someone had built a small shelter from driftwood. Inside, a notebook sat in a waterproof box, filled with messages from previous wanderers. We added our own, slightly embarrassed contribution, and I found myself unexpectedly moved by this evidence of other people also losing their way and finding something worth noting.

The village of Eigeroy itself revealed itself gradually, not through any deliberate exploration but through repeated accidental approaches from different angles. We found the local shop by following what I thought was a shortcut back to the cottage. We discovered a working harbour where elderly men repaired nets with the methodical patience of a lifetime's practice, and where a small cafe served coffee strong enough to reanimate the recently deceased. We stumbled upon a path that ran along the cliff edge, marked only by occasional paint blazes, which delivered us to a view of skerries and islets that I would have sworn was staged for our benefit.

By the third day, we stopped trying to plan. The weather helped, in its changeable Norwegian way; one morning of dense fog made any purposeful navigation impossible, so we simply walked until the sound of the sea grew louder, emerging at a small bay where we disturbed a heron and spent an hour skipping stones with the incompetence of people who had forgotten the technique entirely.

I had arrived with a list, I realise now. Places to see, things to photograph, experiences to accumulate. The loss of that list, both literal and metaphorical, was the genuine gift of those first days. The cottage became our fixed point, the place we returned to with wet boots and unexpected discoveries, to light the stove and compare notes on what we had found without seeking.

On our final evening, we walked down to the cove below the cottage, timing it badly so that we had to scramble back up in rapidly diminishing light. My partner went first, confident as ever, and I followed more slowly, pausing to look back at the water turning silver-grey in the dusk. I thought about the bridge, the dead phone, the sheep, the seventeen inadequate photographs. I thought about how thoroughly I had failed to follow any plan, and how little that failure mattered.

We reached the cottage as the first stars appeared, slightly breathless, slightly ridiculous, entirely content.