We’d barely made it off the M5 before the satnav decided we needed a scenic detour through every back lane in Cornwall. By the time we rolled into St Austell Bay the light was fading, and I was convinced Silvermine House was just around the next bend. It wasn’t. Instead we found ourselves on a single-track road that narrowed until the hedgerows were practically brushing the wing mirrors. A sudden left turn that looked promising turned out to be someone’s driveway, and reversing out meant a five-point shuffle that left our neighbour’s wheelie bin slightly askew. When we finally pulled up outside the little stone cottage, the sea was already a dark shimmer beyond the garden gate and the first stars were out.

The mishap had its upside, though. Instead of the quick unload-and-unpack we’d planned, we ended up wandering the lane that runs behind the house, torch app in hand, simply because we were too wired to sit still. What started as a five-minute stretch of the legs turned into an accidental discovery of a footpath none of the guidebooks mention. It ducked between two granite walls, climbed a short rise, and opened onto a pocket of shingle tucked between higher cliffs. No signs, no car park, just a rope someone had tied to a post for clambering down. We stood there listening to the tide on the stones and decided the lost half-hour had been worth it.

Back at Silvermine House the kettle was still warm from the owners’ welcome tray, and we sat in the window seat with mugs of tea, shoes sandy, feeling oddly pleased with ourselves. The cottage itself felt like an extension of that same low-key charm: low ceilings, a wood-burner already laid, and a fridge stocked with local milk and a note about the nearest honesty-box farm shop. From the upstairs bedroom you can just see the bay between the rooftops, and the sound of the waves carries straight up the lane when the wind is right.

Next morning we tried to find the same cove again on purpose and failed completely, which somehow made it better. We ended up on another track that petered out at a working boatyard where an old fella was painting a dinghy the colour of daffodils. He pointed us towards a footbridge over a stream that led to a tiny café in what used to be a fisherman’s net loft. No menu, just pasties and strong tea, and a view straight onto the water where a seal popped up between the mooring buoys. We lingered longer than planned, then wandered back along the coastal path, stopping every few minutes to watch the gulls argue over a crab shell.

By the time we reached Silvermine House again the sun was low and the garden smelled of wet grass and woodsmoke from next door. I realised I’d spent the whole day not really following any plan at all, and that it suited me. The cottage sat quietly behind its low wall, lights already on in the kitchen, and for once I didn’t feel the need to check the map or the tide times or anything else. Sometimes getting properly lost is the only way to find the bits of Cornwall that still feel like they belong to the people who live here rather than the postcards.