The trail narrowed to singletrack and the landscape opened up as we made our way south, giving us sweeping views of the Mangapurua Valley, the stream a couple of hundred feet below and, one by one, the towering bluffs. With a healthy fear of heights, I was happy to learn it is required for bikers to dismount and walk several hundred feet along the limestone cliffs, because of the extremely narrow and, in some places, unstable ground. A fence and a sign at the start and end of each cliff let bikers know when to dismount and remount.
Pictured: Bikers walk along a narrow section of the Mangapurua Track.