We set off from Cardiff on a Friday afternoon, the M4 surprisingly kind until we took the wrong turn for the A4107 and ended up on a single-track lane that narrowed to a sheep track. My satnav kept insisting we were “arriving,” yet all we could see were bracken-covered slopes and the occasional startled blackbird. By the time we finally spotted the wooden sign for Salt And Fern Cabins, the sun was low and the car was dusted with pine needles from an overhanging branch we’d clipped.

Cabin No. 15 sat tucked into the hillside, its cedar cladding already silvering in the damp air. We hadn’t expected the smell—wet earth, crushed fern, a faint trace of woodsmoke from a neighbouring stove—to greet us before we’d even opened the door. Inside, the kettle was already on the hob, as if the place had been waiting. We dumped bags, made tea, and decided to “just have a quick wander” before unpacking properly.

That quick wander turned into two hours of gentle confusion. The footpath behind the cabins looked promising on the OS map, so we followed it, only to watch it peter out at a drystone wall half-hidden by gorse. Rather than retrace our steps we climbed over, landed in a small clearing where someone had left an old milking stool and a jam jar of wildflowers. A handwritten note tied to the jar read “Take one, leave one for the next wanderer,” so we pocketed a sprig of rosemary and carried on.

Further along, the trees thinned and we found ourselves on a narrow ridge with a view straight down the Afan Valley. No viewpoint sign, no car park, just a flat rock that seemed made for sitting. We stayed until the light turned the bracken copper, then realised we had no torch and the path back was already fading into shadow. The return journey involved more than one wrong turn, a brief debate about whether we were on the same ridge we’d left, and a moment when I tripped over a root and sat down hard in a patch of damp moss. My partner laughed so loudly a nearby sheep bolted.

Back at the cabin the stove was crackling, someone had left a basket of logs by the door, and the kettle was once again suggesting itself. We ate cheese and crackers standing up, too tired to bother with plates, and talked about how easy it is to forget that getting properly lost still happens within twenty minutes of a main road. I’d come expecting a tidy weekend of planned walks and pub lunches; instead I’d spent the first evening following an unmarked trail and feeling oddly grateful for the absence of instructions.

The next morning we set out again with even less of a plan. A forestry track we hadn’t noticed the day before led us past a half-collapsed stone bothy where a robin was busy refurbishing last year’s nest in the rafters. We watched it for ten minutes, then followed a thin ribbon of water that turned out to be a forgotten leat feeding an old sheep dip. The dip itself was empty now, the stone edges softened by moss, but the sound of running water was constant and soothing. We sat on the lip and shared a packet of biscuits we’d bought in Port Talbot on the way up, watching a wren dart in and out of the undergrowth.

By the time we wandered back it was late afternoon and the cabin felt like an old friend. We lit the wood burner, opened the door to let the pine-scented air mix with the smoke, and simply listened to the quiet. There was no itinerary left to follow, no “must-see” list on my phone. Just the ridge we’d found by accident, the bothy with its resident robin, and the small, stubborn pleasure of not quite knowing where we were going next.