We’d barely made it past the outskirts of Conwy when the satnav decided to have a moment, sending us down a single-track lane that narrowed with every hedgerow until the car was practically brushing cow parsley. By the time we found the right turning for Hilltops, the boot was half-open and my sunglasses were somewhere under the passenger seat. Still, pulling up to the little whitewashed cottage perched above the dunes felt like the best kind of accident.

The key was waiting under a flowerpot exactly where the owner had promised, and the first thing that hit me was the smell of warm grass and salt. Inside it was all low ceilings and seaside colours, but I hardly noticed because the view from the kitchen window already had me hooked—rolling fields dropping straight to a strip of sand that looked almost private. We dumped the bags, made tea in mismatched mugs, and wandered out to explore before we’d even unpacked properly.

Instead of heading straight for the main beach path, we followed a half-hidden track that sloped behind the cottage, half expecting it to peter out. It didn’t. After ten minutes of bracken and blackberries we stumbled into a tiny cove none of the guidebooks had mentioned, complete with a driftwood bench someone had clearly built from whatever washed up. We sat there with our tea going cold and watched a heron fish in the shallows while the tide crept in around our shoes.

Later, still mildly lost, we took another wrong turn along the clifftop and found ourselves in a pocket-sized churchyard tucked between two farms. The gate squeaked like it hadn’t been opened in years, and the gravestones leaned at angles that made the whole place feel gently forgotten. We read a few inscriptions, then carried on, only to discover a rope swing hanging from an oak that overlooked the whole Conwy estuary. The swing itself was probably meant for local kids, but we took turns anyway, laughing like teenagers every time the rope creaked.

By the time we wandered back to Hilltops the light had turned that soft gold you only seem to get in North Wales. We cooked pasta on the little electric hob, ate it on the bench outside, and watched the sky fade from peach to navy. Somewhere in the middle of all the detours I realised I hadn’t checked my phone once, and that felt like the real discovery. The cottage itself was lovely, but the best bits had come from simply letting the lanes decide where we went next.