Lost World- The Oparara Basin

Ten kilometres north of Karamea is the turnoff to the Oparara Basin, a hidden valley 14kms up another narrow, rough gravel road (an old forestry road) and inside the Kahurangi National Park. Yet again we are visiting Kahurangi, the largest National Park in New Zealand and one we have visited many times on our journey around the top of South Island.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the distance travelled on a gravel road always feels at least twice as long as it actually is, probably because of the slow speed (it took us 45 minutes) and the bumping about inside the cab. This road was no different. It started out well but steadily got worse with many corrugations and washouts and a few steep sections where there was no gravel or dirt, just bare rock where the road had been cut through.

All the same it was a lovely drive with thick rainforest bordering & sometimes forming a tunnel over the road with occasional glimpses of a rocky creek bed down below the road. Splashes of red from the flowering rata vines grabbed your attention here and there. It’s been a good summer for the rata, they are still flowering long after there usual season. Possum control must have also helped.

It was a great surprise, after not seeing another person or vehicle on the way in, to finally arrive at the end of the road and find this information shelter and a quite a few cars. What a lovely welcome to the Oparara Basin this is; toilets, shelter, interpretation panels and picnic tables.

The Oparara Basin has been called the ‘lost world’ and is one of the finest features of the Kahurangi National Park. Along its course through the basin, and over 35 million years, the Oparara River has carved out three massive limestone arches and numerous cave systems.

At the end of the road and just a few kilometres further on from the public carpark is the highly fragile Honeycomb Hill cave system; a 13km maze of tunnels with over 70 entrances & only first explored in 1980. This cave system contains the remains of over 50 species, including the extinct moa and New Zealand eagle and is only accessible by guided tour to protect the fragile and unique environment. Within this protected area is the Honeycomb Hill Arch, the basin’s third and remotest arch.

There are two arches we are allowed to visit & we decide to visit the Oparara Arch first, the largest natural rock arch in the Southern Hemisphere. The 1km walking track follows the Oparara River upstream. We keep an eye out for Blue Ducks/Whio, there’s a breeding population located in the basin but once again we miss out on seeing them.

The walkway is well formed and very picturesque with ferns and moss growing everywhere and over everything. David sets his track timer going and we’re off….

We pause at the edge of the river where it’s very still and reflective. The dark tannin stained water turns a rich gold colour as it flows over the shallow edge. Cup of tea anyone?

Thick moss and lichen encrusted branches overhang the river and the track like ghostly arms and David is sure James Cameron’s inspiration for the movie Avatar must have come from here- or in fact Weta Workshops inspiration. He feels like he’s walking through a movie set and large blue people will spring out at him at any moment.

And here’s our first glimpse of the huge arch, a land bridge over the top of the river.

And directly underneath, looking up.

The track leads us up into a huge cavern where there’s an old sign with the measurements. Apparently these are not quite right though- DOC’s measurements put the arch at 219m long, up to 79m wide, and 43m high.

We make our way down to the river bed….

Where we can now see the other end of the tunnel….

We wade through the river, (wearing our Tevas was a good idea- most people had walking shoes or tramping boots on), crossing it a couple of times before reaching the other end.

The water is cold but not too deep….

Until the last crossing where it’s quite swift and there’s a deep pool. The rocks are also slippery so we decide we’ll not risk getting wet. A pity because I’m sure there would have been some blue ducks up further! The boulders and rapids we can see  around the corner look like ideal blue duck territory.

We head back towards the entrance…

And I take a photo of David standing below the impressive arch.

Back along the track I stop to take some close ups of the rich green mosses and the stunning moss covered rocks that surround a stream which flows down into the river.

And stop by the river again where I spot these rocks with their contorted faces & hair tuffs.

Back at the carpark we see that our foreign neighbours(with their very young daughter) from the Karamea Domain Campground have parked beside us. In their hire motorhome. Hmm....they obviously can’t read and we’re not sure how on earth they managed to manoeuvre their van over the road without doing some serious damage.

And I can’t imagine what they would have done had they met anybody coming from the opposite direction. The width of the road would have been little more than the van itself and there were very few areas to pass or pull over should another vehicle approach. But there you go, they made it there and back, and were tucked up safe and sound on their site by the time we returned. We heard that the grader was due through the road the next day, I wonder what would have happened had anyone met that on the road let alone a large campervan.

Still to come from the Oparara Basin-

Crazy Paving  & Box Canyon Caves
Mirror Tarn
Moria Gate

North- To The End Of The Road

Ok, back to it. Just so you don't get confused, these next few blog posts are from the last couple of weeks when we travelled from Westport up to Kohaihai and then returned heading south to Lake Kainere for Easter (& where we still are and still sitting it out in the pouring rain- I know the West Coast has something like 200 days of rain a year but this is ridiculous!)


We left Westport, heading north along the coast, bound eventually for the DOC camp at Kohaihai at the end of the road and where the Heaphy Track ‘Great Walk’ starts. It’s only a little over 100kms to the end of the road but, as has become our custom, we only move 40-50kms before setting up camp again. With no itinerary and all the time in the world to get there, we enjoy the luxury of not being in a hurry.

Our first stop is at the Gentle Annie Beach Campground which is just over the river from the tiny beach settlement of Mokihinui. The campground was on the corner of a working farm, a large grassy open area with smaller sites surrounded by hedges (no powered sites), and just across the road from the beach. The cafe come resident’s lounge was called the Cowshed Cafe and was in fact located in an old cowshed.

A 4km gravel road led down to the Gentle Annie Beach, leaving the main highway just over the Mokihinui River bridge and just before the long and winding climb over the Karamea Bluff. Later we took a drive over to Mokihinui where there was a collection of older houses and holiday baches. The Tavern looked like it may only be used over the summer holidays (and during whitebait season no doubt). The photo, middle right is looking back over the river mouth to our camping ground.

Across the road from the campground the beach was lined with diftwood in all directions. Great big piles of it snaked along the tide lines off into the distance. In some places the row curved far into the paddock where rough seas had carried it through gaps in the sand bank. West Coast’s iconic nikau palms grow randomly through the paddocks, spared by the settler’s axe many years ago, although providing little shade for the stock they are a visual treat. Hundreds more poke their heads out from the thick native bush behind.

Abandoned houses make interesting photo subjects….

We couldn’t believe our eyes one morning when a neighbour opened their door to let three large dogs out. It wasn’t a very big caravan, I don’t like to think what it was like inside especially when they all came running back from the beach covered in water and sand and went racing straight inside! I did feel rather sorry for them when they were tied up together though, one was a young dog who kept moving about and tangling the other two up or dragging them form side to side.

We did a couple of short walks while in the area (short being the operative word!) Not far inland, along side the river is the tiny farming settlement of Seddonville. Seddonville, you might remember, is where the 80km Ghost Road bike trail and tramping track finishes- it starts at Lyell, in the Buller Gorge where we stayed.

The Chasm Creek Walkway is a short 2km track that runs along the river bank & beside the road (obscured by bush) just before Seddonville. It was once a rail corridor for the line used to cart timber & coal from mills & mines further up the valley. We were a little worried whether we’d get to see the tunnel and the glow-worms on the walk as there was a notice saying the footbridge was closed.

We took a chance and while the first 500 metres- apart from the splashes of red from the flowering rata vines- was very non-descript, just a bit further on the most amazing and beautiful moss hanging gardens came into view. Growing on both sides of the rock cutting before the entrance to the tunnel and also overhanging the tunnel opening were many vibrant shades of green & rust coloured mosses which draped and smothered the surrounding rock faces, while behind a fine layer of water seeped down the walls keeping everything moist and spongy. A curtain of water also dripped down on us as we entered the tunnel. In some places the moss was at least a foot deep.

The tunnel was short and and the track finished at the bridge just on the otherside- we’d chosen the right end to walk from- you could also walk in from the road closer to Seddonville but this would have been frustrating, seeing the tunnel across the closed bridge and not being able to get there. The bridge had been boarded up and there was no way around it. It was obviously the old rail bridge over Chasm Creek and closed for safety reasons. It didn’t look like there were going to be repairs done to it any time soon, if at all. Which would be a shame as it a good little walk to do if you’re in the area.

After Chasm Creek we drove further on into the valley, past Seddonville and down a gravel winding road(what’s new?) for about 10kms. This brought us to the northern end of the Charming Creek Walkway which starts in Ngakawau 3hrs walk away and follows the corridor of, once again, an old railway. Just over the bridge from the carpark are more remnants from an old coal mine and timber mill. Charming Creek Walkway is rated as one of the South Island’s top five day walks but I can’t confirm whether this is true or not as we decided to give it a miss. Perhaps we’ll walk it the next time we’re in the area.

Our next stop heading north was Karamea but not before crossing over the Radiant Range on a 26km winding and sometimes narrow road that winds its way up and over the hills. Who would live in Karamea I wonder- not many I find out later- having to drive all this way to get to civilization and then its only Westport (sorry Trev). Karamea is about as far as one can get away from it all in New Zealand (by motor vehicle at least). A place of endless wild beaches fringed with nikau palms and feeling like a remote Pacific Island (when the sun is shining).

All through the hills great swathes of mature native trees lay fallen like pick-up-sticks in no particular order. Other trees have had their top halves ripped off. And right beside the dead and dying, corridors of trees are the living; standing tall and green, the lucky ones, spared from nature’s powerful fury. This is the aftermath of Cyclone Ita which roared across New Zealand during Easter 2014, hitting the West Coast especially hard. We’re going to see quite a bit of devastation and windfall on our travels.

We emerge from the hills at Little Wanganui and decide to have lunch at the Little Wanganui River mouth, freedom camping is allowed along the road to the mouth but from what we saw there aren’t too many spots to park up at other than right at the mouth itself where we found a fire still burning from the last overnighters. The sea is very rough and the incoming tide pushes the waves up the river threatening to snuff the log fire out with each surge. It must be a man thing- the hunter/gatherer gene, but David adds a few more pieces of wood to the fire.

This was one of our more interesting lunchtime views; straight out onto the rolling surf, we watched as the waves crept closer and closer to the burning log but left before it was wiped out.

Two surfers were looking for a ride and swum across the mouth and out into the white water dodging a flotilla of large bobbing logs and a raft of smaller driftwood along the way.

We stayed for a couple of nights at the Karamea Domain campground, a pleasant enough spot beside the Karamea River and across the playing fields from the school. There was a lawn bowling tournament on beside the drive into the Domain. They all stopped to gawp as we squeezed by.

Karamea is certainly small, I’m not too sure what I was expecting but it wasn’t one hotel, a small garage with fuel pumps, a police station, two churches, a Four Square supermarket, a couple of tour company businesses, half a dozen accommodation houses and many dairy farms. This is really the back of beyond and I take my hat off to the people who choose to live this far away from a reasonably sized city, it would definitely be a life-style choice in my opinion. Tourism and dairy farming looked to be the mainstays that keep people out here.

We passed the local cop taking the school students through their bike riding skills on the tennis court when we left the Domain.

We did a spot of bird watching while exploring the huge estuary that the Karamea River opens into, an estuary that was formed during the 1929 Murchison earthquake when the Karamea Port was blocked off.

An Australasian Harrier Hawk keeps a lookout for dinner along a feeder stream.

David spotted a White Heron/Kotuku flying over the Domain and we were lucky enough to spot it again when we went to check out Flagstaff Beach. It was feeding on the estuary edge and no amount of stealth disguised our approach before it lifted and flew further away.

Flagstaff Beach was barren and windswept, I had heard that there are often large pieces of driftwood and tree stumps littering the sand (which would make great photo subjects) but it wasn’t to be this day. Maybe they are further north.

My little black stickman makes an re-appearance albeit with his pant legs rolled up- winter must be approaching!

A Wet & Noisy Easter- Part 2

Luckily we had a couple of fine days before Easter because we certainly didn’t see much sun over the long weekend. And little did we know when we arrived, that the lake was hosting a powerboat regatta over Saturday & Sunday and the boat ramp was closed to all other watercraft. Not that we would have gone fishing; all the fish would have been sent to the bottom of the lake in fright. This is becoming a bit of a habit, it’s now the second time we’ve gate-crashed a regatta, the other one was the Classic Boat Show at Lake Rotoiti. That would also explain why there were so many campers about and people fighting for space to set up their tents and motorhomes.

Unfortunately for the organisers and participants the heavens opened up on Friday evening and it rained solidly all night and into the morning when it became torrential, with rivers of water cascading through the camp. Our water collection container was filling in 5 minutes flat- that saved us a trip to the water tap. For the neighbours behind us, there was nothing for it but to hunker down with a stubby around the camp fire while the kids had a ball riding around and playing in the rain.

By early afternoon the rain had stopped and it was all go down on the foreshore.

A crane and digger were used to lift the bigger hydroplane boats into the water.

And then all hell broke loose. The noise, oh the noise- our poor ears! But what excitement.

There were some awesome looking machines out there.

This looks like a very expensive sport.

The best bit was actually how close to the shore they were as they raced past. A thrilling spectacle.

Mrs Frosty Boy did a roaring trade even with the odd shower passing through.

And then it was the turn of the pocket rockets, the Formula One hydroplanes.

More noise and more excitement, these guys can turn on a penny. I was waiting for one to flip they turned at such a tight angle.

The turning marker buoy was right out front of the spectators, the bigger boats had used the island as the turning point.

Once the F1s had been seeded they then raced by starting directly off the beach, after being held steady by supporters.

On ignition the boats burst out of the blocks at near full speed.

And then there were the little guys; the Clubmans & Juniors.

Well they were little boats, some of the guys weren’t so little.

The rain held off for the rest of the afternoon with just a couple of passing showers. Sunday dawned sunny and we decided we’d go for a drive to explore while it was fine. And to escape the noise. There’s only so much you can take when you’re not watching the races- a few of the campers were here just for the break, like us, unaware that the racing was on. I bet they wished they'd picked a different lake.

We returned late afternoon to find the racing still in full swing with a lot more spectators. A sunny holiday afternoon brings out the Sunday drivers.

We watched some of the last races from our door.

Monday morning dawned overcast and the rain set in again by mid-morning. Most had packed and left before it started although a few had to struggle packing up wet tents & wet kids in the heavy rain.

And then they were gone, the only evidence of an action packed weekend were the overflowing bins…

….and the rained filled tire tracks. At least some of the local residents were pleased with the outcome.

And then we were back to being on our own again. And we’re still waiting for some sun, overnight the rain was non-stop torrential, the noise on the roof deafening and it’s rained on and off all day. The mist and cloud sit low around the lake and it’s pretty miserable but we’ll sit it out for a day or two, there’s not much point moving when it’s like this all along the Coast.

A Quiet & Sunny Easter- Part 1

Famous last words…

Before I catch up-to-date on the blogs from the last week or so I wanted to tell you about our Easter. It’s a two part blog but I won’t keep you waiting tool long for the second installment.

Our visit started off well enough, we arrived at the DOC camp at Lake Kaniere on Tuesday well in advance of any campers coming to stay for the Easter holiday weekend. There's no camping allowed along the foreshore but there's plenty of views from up the back.

We had the place to ourselves the first night, we found an ideal area to set up camp; on the top level overlooking a section of the lake and a picturesque island just off shore. It’s a large camp site with multiple grassed levels with large bushes dividing up the various sections.

The lake is stunning, not a breath of wind to cause a ripple anywhere.

Just a few resident ducks including this female Paradise duck with her mate- they swim away the morning and then waddle up to the top level to graze on the grass and sunbath on the rocks near our van.

A male South Island Tomtit (Miromiro) calls our level and the level below his territory. He spends most of his time fighting his reflection in the car mirror. He does laps of his patch, around and around he flies, from tree to rock to picnic table to mirror to van to another tree and back to the mirror. I think he hopes that intruder will be gone by the time he gets back. Poor boy, another car pulls in and straight away he’s fighting that reflection too. His breast is a beautiful golden colour, he’s getting ready for the breeding season when it’ll turn even more golden. North Island tomtits have white breasts.

Then there are the usual suspects, about half a dozen weka, they wander about scavenging for scraps and calling loudly before scurrying off under the bushes chasing each other.

We do a bit of exploring on Wednesday and David inflates the dinghy later in the afternoon. He’s off fishing Thursday morning…

And catches his first perch which is released after he’s taken a photo. There are also salmon in the lake along with brown & rainbow trout. He has a couple of strikes but isn’t able to land any. He tells me that the lake is very dark, an inky blackness from the tannin stained water and it’s also very deep. Up near the top of the lake it’s also very pretty with flax and reeds reflecting in the still water.

On Friday we go exploring in the boat, right to the top where the reflections are. David trolls along the edges and I relax (as much as you can in a 3.5 metre dinghy).

We pass a bus freedom camping on the lake’s edge, they have an inflatable ready to go too. A little further on we see a person sitting on a large wooden seat & another skimming stones across the smooth water. I know there’s a lodge somewhere up near the top of the lake and wonder if they are from there. We later discover that there’s a short walkway down to the beach from the carpark at Dorothy Falls.

We stop on a beach to have lunch but can’t find a suitable log or rock to sit on and the pesky sandflies are annoying us again so we climb back into the boat and sit on the seats to eat lunch, floating just off shore in the peace and solitude…..until a fizz boat roars by. The sandflies still find us but don’t swarm as much as they do onshore. After lunch we move further down the lake and tie up to a fallen log. Directly behind the bush that fringes the lake is the beautiful Lake Kaniere Walkway (and mountain biking track); a 3.5hr 11km walk that follows the lake edge from top to bottom.

The cloud is closing in on the lake by the time we make our way back to the boat ramp and we can see a lot of activity along the foreshore.

There are now three caravans and their associated gazebos, BBQs and tables set up behind us and the level below us is also filling up fast…..

Ok, well it is Easter after all and this is the last chance many will have of going camping this summer. But it does seem rather busy all the same…..

To be continued……