Epic Hikes of the World ( PDFDrive )

It looks like any other forested pass on any other trail. I’ve been walking for five
hours, and rainforest wraps around me. The trail is climbing towards an obvious
notch in the ridge, where I’m expecting to step on to the pass and find an
ordinary scene – another slope of forest rolling away ahead of me.
But nothing is ordinary here. I’m hiking on the Cape Brett Track, which runs like
an underline beneath New Zealand’s famed Bay of Islands, following the high line
of the cape’s ridge to a lighthouse on its point. I will stay the night in the former
lighthouse-keeper’s cottage before returning the following day.
© Evgeny Gorodetsky | Shutterstock
Cape Brett Lighthouse seen from afar, standing tall in the Bay of Islands
As I step on to the pass, the world suddenly plunges away beneath my feet. I’m
stopped in my tracks, literally, because to take two steps ahead would mean being
toppled into the ocean almost 660ft (200m) below. Ahead of me, across the sea,
the cape snakes and contorts to its end, the track looking like a razor cut through
its high cliffs.