Our next stop in the Oparara Basin was Oparara Arch. When researching the area it was hard to find much information about each of the different parts of the basin, so we just decided to do each of the trails and hope for the best. Once again as soon as we left the car park the trail took us deep into the lush green forest.
A short while later the track crossed a stream on giant moss covered boulders. Luckily the water level was quite low and we were able to hop across on one of the rocks that was free of moss.
A little further along the trail we found ourselves walking along the bank of the Oparara River. We decided to take advantage of a little break in the clouds and stopped for our picnic lunch on the rocky beach.
After lunch we continued on along the trail until eventually we saw what appeared to be a large overhang in the rock face ahead of us. We knew that the area was well-know for caves and were pleased when the trail started taking us towards the overhang.
As we got closer, we realised that it wasn’t just an overhang, but was in fact a giant rock arch. Unlike the redstone arches we were used to seeing in Colorado and Utah, this one was almost hidden amongst the trees.
As we continued along the track we realised that the arch we had seen was just the start of a much larger cave. In fact, once we got into the mouth of the cave we were able to see that this was a huge tunnel.
The track took us to a lookout perched halfway up the side of the cave, which gave us a great view out through the tunnel and down to the river below us.
It is hard to get a sense of scale from the photographs, but the arches here are said to be the largest in Australasia with a length of 200 metres, a width of 49 metres and a height of 37 metres.
Even knowing the dimensions of the huge tunnel-like arch, it is hard to get a sense of scale, hopefully the picture above makes it a little easier to see just how big this rock tunnel was.
We spent a while exploring the giant cave, and hiding from a passing rain shower. In this section of the cave we were able to see the difference between the granite bedrock and the upper levels of limestone that help to make the unique rock features. After the shower passed, we followed the root-beer coloured river all the way back to the car park so that we could head out to the last of the caves in the area.