Think of holidays in the Dordogne and you usually think of lazy picnics by the river, leisurely chateau visits, and indulgent foodie breaks in Bergerac or St Emilion. But up the winding river from these famous tourist spots lies the lesser-known, more rugged upper Dordogne, where the last thing on the minds of the few visitors that make it there is wine-tasting. The area around the medieval town of Argentat, on the edge of the rocky Massif Central, is instead becoming a magnet for adrenaline junkies.

Here rock climbers scale granite gorges, and hang-gliders, mountain bikers and kayakers pit themselves against the wooded escarpments, twisting hills and fast-flowing water.

A local outfit Aventures Dordogne Nature, drove us past tussocky meadows, rolling dairy farmland and woods that slope sharply towards the glinting Dordogne river to some granite cliffs beside a tiny church, the Chapelle de Notre Dame du Roc. "Maybe an angel will catch me if I fall," said Richard, one of our party and a vertigo-suffering novice.

After showing us how to work the ropes and harnesses, Philippe talked us up, or in some cases part way up, a beginners' 30m climb, calling encouragement in broken English when we slipped or became nervous. After a go or two we were all so pumped with adrenaline we could have stayed all day, but on this action-packed trip it was time to try something even more exciting – hang-gliding.

Summer sees hundreds of hang-gliders flinging themselves over the edge of the forested escarpments near Argentat, to fly over a patchwork of farms and pastures on the valley floor. That would have been a bit much for first-timers, so we started on a hang-gliding simulator – attached to a zipline – in a sloping field. You clip yourself onto the hang-glider, grab the control bar underneath then run a little way down the field as if to go "over the edge". When the slope drops away, you "glide" down the zipline.