We’d only just pulled off the A171 when the satnav decided we were taking a shortcut through someone’s back garden. By the time we’d reversed out of a gravel driveway and apologised to a very unimpressed tabby, the rain had started and our carefully folded map was already soggy. Still, the little lane that eventually spat us out behind the 4 Bed Cottage in Whitby felt like a secret handshake; the cottage itself sat tucked between two fishermen’s terraces, its blue door facing straight onto the slipway where the boats come in at high tide.

First impressions were all salt air and creaking floorboards. We dumped the bags, flicked on the kettle, and wandered straight out again before the kettle had even boiled, lured by the smell of chips drifting from the harbourside. Instead of heading towards the obvious cluster of souvenir shops, we took the narrower path that climbs behind the lifeboat station. Within minutes the town noise faded and we were following a line of weather-beaten steps that no one else seemed to be using. At the top, an old bench overlooked the whole curve of the bay; we sat there eating slightly squashed sausage rolls from the petrol-station stop and felt ridiculously pleased with ourselves.

From that bench a half-hidden track led us further, past allotments where someone had left a radio playing quietly among the runner beans. We kept going until the path petered out beside a tiny, fenced cemetery that looked more like a garden than a graveyard. Names on the stones dated back to the 1700s, and the view stretched clear across to the far headland where the abbey ruins sat like cut-outs against the sky. A black cat appeared, inspected our shoelaces, then led us down a different flight of steps we hadn’t noticed on the way up.

By the time we found ourselves back at the cottage, the tide had turned and the slipway was busy with returning cobles. We stood in the doorway, shoes sandy, laughing about how we’d meant to unpack and instead spent the afternoon completely lost within half a mile of our own front door. It felt like the sort of accidental wandering that happens when you stop trying to tick things off a list. Later, watching the lights come on along the harbour from the upstairs window, I caught myself thinking that sometimes the best part of arriving somewhere new isn’t the grand plan you arrive with, but the unplanned corners you stumble into before you’ve even unpacked the kettle.