We set off from Norwich on a bright but blustery afternoon, the satnav promising forty minutes to Sedum House. Twenty minutes later the road signs vanished and we found ourselves on a single-track lane bordered by tall reeds. A tractor appeared from nowhere, forcing us onto the verge, and in the scramble my partner dropped the printed directions out of the window. We spent the next quarter of an hour circling back and forth past the same field of sugar beet until, by pure chance, we spotted a tiny wooden fingerpost half-hidden in the hedge that read “Gimingham Beach ¾”.

That wrong turn became the theme of the weekend. Instead of following the main coast road we kept turning down unmarked tracks whenever something looked promising. One led us to a shingle spit where a handful of locals were quietly crabbing off the old wooden jetty; another brought us to a chalky footpath that wound between gorse bushes and opened onto a perfect curve of golden sand with not another soul in sight. We spread our picnic blanket there, watching oystercatchers skitter along the tideline while the children collected tiny fossilised shells.

Back at Sedum House the kettle was already on when we finally arrived, the cottage sitting just a pebble’s throw from the dunes. Its pale weatherboard walls glowed in the low sun and the small garden gate creaked in that satisfying way only old hinges manage. Inside, the sitting room felt instantly welcoming: squashy sofas, a wood-burner ready for the evening, and big windows framing the sea like a moving picture. We kicked off sandy shoes and made tea, laughing about how we’d managed to get lost before we’d even unpacked.

The next morning we tried again to “do it properly” and promptly got lost once more, this time on foot. A footpath behind the garden led us through a sheltered hollow full of fluttering butterflies and ended at a tiny freshwater stream trickling onto the beach. We followed it barefoot, the cold water delicious after the warm sand. Further along, half-buried in the marram grass, we discovered an old fisherman’s bothy turned into an honesty-box café selling flasks of soup and slices of still-warm ginger cake. We sat on driftwood stools, watching waves fold over themselves, and realised we hadn’t checked a map or a phone signal all morning.

By the time we wandered back to Sedum House the light was turning that soft Norfolk gold. Standing in the garden with a glass of wine, I caught myself thinking how rarely we let ourselves wander without a plan. Getting lost had given us the beach we hadn’t known existed, the soup we hadn’t known we needed, and the quiet realisation that sometimes the best parts of a holiday arrive when the satnav gives up.