I have never been brilliant with directions, which is how I ended up driving past the same sheep three times before actually finding the turnoff to our holiday let in Skjold. The sat nav had given up on me somewhere near Vindafjord, emitting a sad little bloop before suggesting I perform a U-turn in a field. My other half sat there with that particular expression of someone who has learned, over many years, not to offer advice unless specifically asked. I asked. He wisely said nothing.

We had flown into Stavanger and collected a hire car that smelled faintly of fish and optimism. The drive north was gorgeous in that understated Norwegian way - granite cliffs, sudden glimpses of fjord water the colour of old glass, and those red wooden houses that look like they have been painted by someone who really enjoys their work. I was determined to find every hidden corner, to get properly lost, to stumble upon something marvellous by accident. Be careful what you wish for.

The cottage itself was one of those traditional white wooden places with a proper grass roof, the sort that makes you feel instantly like you ought to be wearing a hand-knitted jumper and discussing cloudberries. We dumped our bags and I immediately insisted on exploring, despite having just spent six hours in a car and despite the light already starting to soften into that long Norwegian evening glow. My other half made coffee and stayed put. Some people know their limits.

I walked down what I thought was a proper path but was actually, I discovered three quarters of an hour later, a sheep track. The sheep in question watched me with the blank contempt of someone who has seen many tourists make this exact mistake. The ground became wetter, then properly boggy, and I was on the verge of admitting defeat when I crested a small rise and found a tiny cove I could never have located on purpose. The fjord water lapped against dark stones, and someone had built a rough wooden bench facing the water, clearly for their own private use. I sat there feeling like an intruder and also like I had won something. A heron lifted off from the shallows with that awkward grace they have, and I realised I had no idea how to get back.

This became the pattern of our week. I would set off with vague intentions, get lost within twenty minutes, and find something I never would have planned for. There was the abandoned orchard near a farm where no one seemed to live, the trees heavy with apples no one was collecting. I helped myself to windfalls and ate them on a wall, watching a tractor putter along a distant road. There was the stream I followed upstream because the path had vanished, which led to a pool where someone had left a rusted barbecue and a folding chair, a secret swimming hole that felt like a discovery even though obviously locals had been using it for years.

The best find came on our fourth day, when I took a wrong turning on what was meant to be a simple loop through woodland near the cottage. The track petered out into nothing, and I was mentally composing my apology to the search and rescue team when I noticed a gap in the trees. Through it, a small lake sat perfectly still, surrounded by birch and spruce, with a single wooden rowing boat pulled up on the shore. No house visible, no sign, no indication this existed on any map I had seen. I sat on the boat, which wobbled alarmingly, and watched dragonflies stitch patterns across the water. A fish jumped somewhere out in the middle, leaving ripples that took an age to still.

My other half, when I finally returned two hours late for dinner, pointed out that I could have used my phone. I had not even thought to check if I had signal. There is something about that particular landscape, the way the hills fold in on themselves and the trees block sightlines, that makes technology feel like an irrelevance. You stop thinking about where you are trying to get to and start noticing where you actually are.

On our last evening I tried to retrace my steps to the hidden lake, determined to show him. I failed completely, ended up in a different cove entirely, and we watched the sun go down behind the hills with our feet in cold water and a packet of biscuits between us. He said it was better this way, that some places should stay found by accident. I think he might be right, though I will probably spend future holidays trying to prove him wrong, getting lost on purpose, hoping for another glimpse of something I was never meant to find.