The final stop on our tour of the Oparara Basin was at some caves a short distance further up the valley. The first cave was aptly named crazy paving cave, the name became apparent after we made our way inside. On each side of the path, the floor of the cave was covered in dried mud that looked like misshapen tiles.
After a short walk through the forest we arrived at the next cave, Box Canyon Cave. We made our way under the low opening to the staircase that dropped down to the floor of the cave.
Once inside the cave it opened up into an area that felt more like a room, with almost straight sides and a flat roof. After exploring for a while, whilst keeping an eye out for the cave wetas that are common here we made our way back up the staircase to the daylight.
We returned to the car and headed back down the narrow forest road towards the town of Karamea. After a stop at ‘The Last Resort’ for a coffee, as the weather was still pretty good, we decided to explore the area around town.
Our first stop was the Karamea Estuary, the river here was originally used as a port as early as 1500 AD by early Māori that used the area as a summer camp on their pounamu (greenstone) trading route. The first Europeans were dropped in this area in 1874 in the hopes that they could establish a community here. Despite the river providing the only access, the community grew and the port operated for around 50 years until the 1929 Murchison earthquake cause landslides upstream which blocked the river. Over time the river began to silt up, causing changes in the channel which made navigation difficult and eventually the port was abandoned and a trade route opened up over the bluff on an unsealed road.
It is hard to imagine the area as a busy port as little remains of the wharf and tramways, today the coastline here is pretty wild. With the infamous wet West Coast weather holding off we went for a final walk along the beach before heading back to our cabin for the evening.