I have never been so grateful for a cup of tea in my entire life, and that includes the time I spilled an entire pot down my front at a wedding. The drive from Oslo to Tuddal had been nothing short of spectacular, winding through Telemark's lake-dotted landscape with the windows down and my terrible singing echoing off the mountains. But it was the final three miles that nearly finished me off. My sat nav, bless its electronic heart, decided that what our little hire car really needed was an off-road adventure. I found myself bumping down a gravel track barely wider than a sheep, convinced I was about to become a local legend for all the wrong reasons. Turns out I had missed the proper turning by a good half mile. A friendly farmer in a tractor, who looked like he had seen this exact scene play out a hundred times before, pointed me back with a grin that suggested my Norwegian was even worse than my navigation.

By the time I pulled up to the cabin, my hands were still gripping the steering wheel like I was clinging to a cliff face. But then I stepped out, and everything else fell away. The place sits nestled among birch and pine, looking out over a still lake that mirrors the sky so perfectly you cannot tell where one ends and the other begins. The air smells of resin and something else I cannot name, something clean that makes your lungs feel slightly confused by the lack of traffic fumes. I stood there for a good five minutes just breathing, which I realise makes me sound like I have joined some sort of woodland meditation cult.

The cabin itself is the sort of understated Scandinavian design that makes you simultaneously appreciate good timber and question every furniture choice you have ever made. Warm wood inside, simple lines, windows positioned to catch the light at exactly the right angles. I dumped my bags with the enthusiasm of a man who had just escaped the wilderness and immediately made for the kettle. That first cup, brewed on the proper hob and taken on the little wooden deck, tasted like redemption.

I had arrived with grand walking plans, as you do when you have spent too long scrolling through photos of Norwegian scenery and not enough time considering your own fitness level. The local area around Tuddal is threaded with paths that climb through forest and open out onto rocky heights. My intention was to tackle a proper ridge walk the following morning, the sort that would have me returning with aching legs and a smug expression. I had even packed sandwiches, which in my world counts as serious preparation.

But the weather had other ideas. I woke to grey skies and a wind that was doing something complicated across the lake, sending little whitecaps scurrying in directions that seemed to defy physics. By mid-morning it had warmed considerably, the clouds breaking apart and the temperature climbing into something that felt almost Mediterranean by Norwegian standards. My heavy walking boots suddenly seemed like overkill, and the thick socks I had laid out looked positively tragic.

I adapted, as we must when nature makes our plans look foolish. Instead of the ambitious ridge, I took a gentler path that wound along near the water's edge, where the warmth had brought out every insect and bird for miles around. The ground was soft with pine needles, and the light through the trees had that particular golden quality that makes everything look slightly enchanted. I walked slowly, deliberately, stopping whenever something caught my eye, which was approximately every forty seconds. A particular rock formation. The way the light caught a patch of moss. A dragonfly that seemed to be following me with suspicious interest.

By afternoon the temperature had climbed even higher, and I found myself on a small shingle beach I had not known existed, shoes off and trousers rolled to the knee like a man who had never heard of dignity. The water was still cold enough to make me yelp, but the sun on my back was proper warmth, the kind that sinks into your bones and makes you slightly drowsy. I sat on a flat rock and ate my ridge-walk sandwiches with the contentment of someone who has accidentally discovered that Plan B was the better option all along.

That evening, back on the cabin deck with another cup of tea and the sun dropping slowly behind the hills, I thought about how often I arrive places with everything mapped out, every hour accounted for, every experience anticipated in advance. The wrong turn, the changed weather, the abandoned ridge walk, none of it had been in my plans, and yet here I was, slightly sunburned and thoroughly content, watching the lake turn from silver to gold to something approaching pink. Sometimes the mishaps are the point, I decided, or at least they make for better stories than the times everything goes exactly right.

I have three more days here, and I have made no plans at all, which feels slightly dangerous and entirely wonderful.