Diana's Peak

Saint Helena's spine rises to Diana's Peak at 823 metres, and the summit ridge keeps the island's rarest world: cloud forest of black cabbage trees and tree ferns - species that evolved here and exist nowhere else - dripping in the trade-wind mists that water a national park restored plant by plant from near-loss. The Peaks trail walks the ridge between the three summits, flax-era history and endemic gumwoods telling the island's ecological story, and clear moments open the whole South Atlantic prospect: the island's ridges falling to an ocean empty to every horizon.

What you actually see

• The endemic cloud forest - cabbage trees and ferns of this island only.
• The Peaks ridge trail - the three-summit traverse.
• The restoration story - a flora pulled back from the brink.
• The Atlantic prospect - ocean empty to every horizon.

When to go

December to May, the island's kinder season, with mornings beating the mist that owns the ridge by afternoon; the endemics flower to their own calendars.

Honest expectations

Paths are steep, muddy and mist-slick by design - the cloud forest is a weather system with scenery; views are a lottery the forest itself insures against.

Nearby

The central ridges, Plantation House and Jamestown's valley.