The park's major hikes begin at LAUDAT , a village 1970ft above sea level with stupendous views of the undulating countryside. The trail to one of Dominica's tallest waterfalls, the refreshing 275ft Middleham Falls , begins just south of town off the road into Laudat, and is a straightforward 45-minute walk through yanga palms, wild anthurium and leafy bromeliads. Thirty minutes past the falls lies Tou Santi , a collapsed lava tube emitting warm, smelly gases, and whose crevices shelter bats and the occasional boa constrictor.

At the entrance to Laudat proper, a well-marked and groomed path heads off to the largest of Dominica's four lakes, Freshwater Lake , 2500ft above sea level at the end of a gradual 2.5-mile trail north of the town centre. There's not much to see here, aside from sulphurous jets that leave rust marks on nearby rocks and greenery; more interesting is Boeri Lake , a crater lake enclosed by jagged boulders, 1.25 miles further along the same trail.

At Laudat's eastern outskirts, an unsightly centipede-like contraption funnels a forceful mountain current into the island's main hydroelectric plant. Before reaching the plant, the water rushes below the unusual Titou Gorge , a dark passageway sheltered by solidified lava formations, about ten minutes' walk from the plant alongside the centipede. If the current isn't too rough, you can swim beneath the formations to a small waterfall at the back; if you see brown water sputtering in the access pool it means that the current is strong and you should not go in. You can warm up afterwards by leaning against a hot spring that feeds the pool.

Invigorating swimming aside, Titou Gorge is also visited as the last stop before the trailhead to Dominica's ultimate hike, a full-day outing to Boiling Lake , an eerie 207ft-wide cauldron of bubbling greyish-blue water shrouded in vaporous cloud. Thought to be a flooded fumerole through which gases escape from molten lava below, Boiling Lake is the second largest of its kind in the world. The hike takes in vistas of canopied Chatannyé and Bwa Bandé trees, rainbow-coloured hot springs, and the petrified Valley of Desolation - a richly forested area that was reduced to a moonscape of mosses and lichens after an 1880 volcanic eruption. The six-mile, seven-hour round-trip should only be attempted by experienced hikers and with the help of a guide.