I have never been so grateful for a pair of waterproof trousers in my life, and I say that as someone who once wore them to a wedding by accident. The journey to Idse, just outside Jorpeland in Rogaland, had been going so well until it very much wasn't. We'd flown into Stavanger, collected our hire car, and set off full of Scandinavian optimism and a boot full of expensive Norwegian sandwiches. The sun was out, the fjords were gleaming, and I may have made some bold claims about how we'd probably be swimming by teatime.

The property we'd booked sat on the island of Idse, connected to the mainland by a short bridge, and looked exactly like the sort of place where you'd write a novel or at least seriously consider becoming a better person. Traditional red wooden cladding, white trim, a proper grass roof that made me want to lie on it immediately. My partner, ever the practical one, was more interested in whether the hot tub worked. Reader, it did. We did not yet know we would need it for warmth rather than leisure.

Our mishap came during the final mile. In my enthusiasm to arrive, I turned onto what I can only describe as a "road" in the same way that a sheep track might be described as a motorway. The gravel became mud, the mud became something I suspect was once a stream, and our sensible Volvo suddenly looked very suburban indeed. We spent twenty minutes reversing in increments of three feet, accompanied by the sound of Norwegian birdsong and my own increasingly creative swearing. A local chap on a quad bike eventually appeared, said "first time?" with the resigned kindness of someone who'd seen this many times before, and directed us to the actual driveway. We arrived at the cabin with mud halfway up the doors and our dignity somewhat diminished.

But here's the thing about Rogaland in warm weather: it forgives you. We dumped our bags, pulled on our walking boots, and set off along the coastal path that wound around Idse's edge. The island sits in a maze of waterways, with views across to the mainland and the endless skerries beyond. The light does something extraordinary here, bouncing off the water in a way that makes everything look slightly golden, slightly unreal. We walked for hours, clambering over smooth coastal rocks, finding tiny coves where the water was impossibly clear and impossibly cold, and generally pretending we were characters in a Nordic crime drama but with less murder and more packed lunches.

The local weather, however, had plans we hadn't anticipated. That morning's sunshine had been a trick, a Norwegian prank. By afternoon, a wind whipped up from the south-west that made our light summer jackets feel like decorative items. We pressed on to a viewpoint we'd read about, a rocky outcrop looking across to Jorpeland itself, and arrived just as the first proper rain hit. Not English drizzle, mind you. This was horizontal, purposeful rain that seemed personally offended by our presence.

We huddled behind a boulder, laughing at our own stupidity, sharing the last of our expensive sandwiches while the view disappeared entirely into grey. There's something about being properly rained on in a beautiful place that strips away any pretence. We weren't intrepid explorers. We were two slightly soggy Brits who'd misread a forecast. But we were also, somehow, exactly where we wanted to be.

The walk back became a march of necessity rather than leisure. We took a lower path through scrubby birch and heather, the kind of terrain that characterises this whole coastline, low and wind-sculpted and stubbornly beautiful. Every so often the rain would pause, the clouds would part, and we'd get a glimpse of why we'd come: that particular Norwegian light, the smell of pine and salt, the absolute stillness when the wind dropped.

By the time we reached the cabin, we were soaked through despite our best efforts. The hot tub, previously a nice-to-have, became essential infrastructure. We sat in it as evening came on, watching the weather continue its performance across the water, steam rising around us, muscles slowly remembering what warmth felt like. My waterproof trousers hung on the line like a flag of surrender.

We'd planned more ambitious hikes for the days ahead, routes along the mainland coast towards Jorpeland proper, perhaps even the famous trail to Preikestolen if we were feeling energetic. But that first evening, prune-fingered and slightly humbled, we revised our ambitions. The warm weather here is not the warm weather of southern Europe. It demands respect, proper layers, and a willingness to abandon plans when the horizon turns dark.

I fell asleep that night to the sound of rain on that grass roof, properly tired in a way that only a long walk and a near-death reversing experience can achieve. We had arrived, we had been defeated by gravel and weather, and we were absolutely going to do it all again tomorrow.