I had been driving for the better part of six hours when I realised my phone thought I was somewhere near Sweden. Not ideal, given I was meant to be checking into a cabin in Oppdal. The Satnav had given up around Dombas, and I'd been following what I generously called "instinct" but was really just a stubborn refusal to admit I was lost. The road had narrowed to something a tractor would hesitate on, and there I was, a bloke from Birmingham, squinting at a signpost covered in what I prayed was just very enthusiastic moss.

The mishap, though. I need to tell you about the mishap. I'd stopped to photograph a particularly handsome fjord pony, because of course I had, and in my excitement I'd left the driver's door wide open. The wind, which in South Trondelag deserves its own postcode, had slammed it shut with me on the outside and my keys, phone, and dignity on the inside. I spent twenty minutes trying to coax the pony into some kind of rescue scenario before accepting that horses make terrible locksmiths. A passing farmer eventually took pity on me, though his Norwegian was rapid and his laughter was unmistakable.

When I finally found the cabin, rattled and smelling faintly of horse, the first thing that struck me was the silence. Not the awkward, heavy silence of a dentist's waiting room, but something generous and patient. The sort of silence that lets you hear your own thoughts before you've properly formed them. The cabin sat among low birch trees, with mountains rising behind it like they'd been casually placed there by someone showing off. I stood on the porch with my bag still unpacked and just breathed. It smelled of pine and cold water and something else I couldn't name. Something that made me feel I'd arrived somewhere that didn't particularly care whether I was impressed or not.

I hadn't planned to get properly lost the next morning. I'd intended a sensible walk, perhaps a loop, something with a clear path and a laminated information board. But the trail I'd chosen petered out after half a mile into what I can only describe as "aggressively informal" terrain. Rather than sensibly retreat, I pressed on, because something in the landscape invites that particular flavour of stubbornness. The birch gave way to scrubby heather, and suddenly I was following a stream I hadn't known existed, watching it tumble over stones worn smooth by countless winters.

That's how I found the pool. No sign, no path, no mention in any guide I'd read. Just water so clear it seemed to be making a point, gathered in a hollow where the stream paused before continuing its descent. I sat on a rock for an hour, maybe longer. A ptarmigan watched me from a distance, apparently unimpressed by my discovery. I didn't mind. There's something humbling about realising the world has been keeping secrets from you, and that you've accidentally stumbled into one.

The rest of my stay became a series of these accidents. A wrong turn on a forest road delivered me to a viewpoint where the valley spread out like a relief map, farms and rivers reduced to patterns. A failed attempt to find a supermarket led me instead to a farm shop where an elderly woman sold me brown cheese and told me, in broken English and expressive gestures, about the winter when the snow reached her windowsill. I understood perhaps a third of her words and nearly all of her meaning.

On my final evening, I walked without purpose from the cabin, letting my feet find their own route. I ended up at a small lake I'd somehow missed on every map, watching the light change on the water as the evening stretched towards that long, slow Norwegian dusk. I thought about my locked car, my useless Satnav, my complete unsuitability for wilderness navigation. And I thought about how grateful I was for all of it, how each small disaster had pushed me somewhere I hadn't known to look.

I came to Oppdal expecting mountains and fresh air, the usual holiday promises. I found something more valuable: the particular joy of being lost in a place generous enough to reward your mistakes.