Oparara Basin in Kahurangi National Park - New Zealand's Biggest Gap Year – BackpackerGuide.NZ
Day 105: Today we are checking out the epic Oparara Basin in the Kahurangi National Park of New Zealand! We’re seeing giant natural arches, caves and wildlife!
Yesterday - Day 104 ➜
Tomorrow – Day 106 ➜
30 Tips for Backpacking in New Zealand ➜
-- About this video --
Today we are seeing some of the most amazing natural features of New Zealand and we bet most of you have never heard of it. We are going to the Oparara Basin in the Kahurangi National Park.
Thanks to the lovely guys at the Rongo Backpackers in Karamea, we borrow the “Rogomobile” and drive down the long and narrow gravel road into the Kahurangi National Park. The drive is like a bush walk for cars as we make our way through the forest. We arrive at the parking area for the Oparara Basin and our options are endless!
First up, we hit the Crazy Paving Cave, a cave which looks like it has a natural pavement. We follow a walkway through into the darkness, crouching through tunnels... It’s quite the adventure (like every day is a New Zealand adventure!)
Next is the Box Cave, named because it’s like a giant box, we guess. This is a huge cave that has many little side rooms and rock formations. It’s like exploring the caves of Waitomo but by yourself and free! Yes, this is one of the free caves in New Zealand!
After exploring some New Zealand caves, next we head to the finale, the Oparara Arches. This takes us on a beautiful bush walk through the Kahurangi National Park alongside rivers and streams flowing over mossy rocks. It’s like a fairy tale forest.
We finally reach the grand finale which is the magnificent Oparara Arches – a giant archway with a river flowing through it! We are in awe of this huge arch in New Zealand! It’s one of the New Zealand attractions not to be missed!
We can’t top that so we call it a day and head back to Rongo Backpackers where tonight is potluck night. Everyone in the hostel makes a dish and shares it with the group.
So what do you think of the Oparara Basin? Would you add it to your New Zealand bucket list?
#NZMustDo #BackpackerGuideNZ #WestCoastNZ #Kahurangi #NewZealand #TravelNewZealand #NewZealandVlog
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-- New Zealand Biggest Gap Year --
365 Days: 365 Activities
BackpackerGuide.NZ is New Zealand’s biggest online travel guide for adventure and budget travel in New Zealand. Join us, as the team behind BackpackerGuide.NZ, Robin and Laura, update the travel guide while taking on 365 Days: 365 Activities in New Zealand! It’s New Zealand’s Biggest Gap Year! We release new videos of the New Zealand backpacking adventure every single day, as well as New Zealand travel tips and 360 videos every Sunday so start making your New Zealand bucket list!
Read more about the Charming Creek Walkway on New Zealand’s biggest guide for backpackers:
-- More about the West Coast and the Kahurangi National Park –
9 West Coast Must-Dos ➜
Kahurangi National Park – Guide for Backpackers ➜
West Coast – Guide for Backpackers ➜
New Zealand: Oparara Basin, Nelson Lakes, Punakaiki Pancake Rocks
This video features several places along the west coast of the south island of New Zealand. This includes Karamea (Oparara Basin and Caves), the Punakaiki Pancake Rocks, Nelson Lakes National Park, and the Buller Gorge Swing Bridge.
Buller, West Coast New Zealand - Cape Foulwind and Oparara Basin
Cape Foulwind walkway is just south of Westport in the Buller region and is nearly 7 km's long. Stunning coastline, lighthouse and fur seal colony. The Weka flightless bird is often around this area as well.
North of Karamea in the Kahurangi NP is the Oparara Basin, only to be accessed trough a long and narrow gravel road. Plenty of hikes there including the Oparara Arch and Moria Gate walks.
Oparara Arches Karamea, Garry Howard,Bruce Smith
Oparara Arches Karamea, Garry Howard and Bruce Smith take a close up look at this Coast icon.
Dirt Road to Moria Gate Arch, Karamea, New Zealand
One lane dirt road to Moria Gate Arch, Oparara Basin, Karamea, New Zealand. Took 25 minutes to get to car park. Video 10X speed. Starts at paved intersection of Karamea-Kohaihai Rd & heads inland east on Mccallums Mill Rd. April 22, 2012
Oparara Arches, Karamea - West Coast, NZ
Oparara Basin Arches, Karamea. Not a Great Walk but Still Amazing
We take a beautiful day trip to the Oparara Basin near Karamea, at the Northern tip of the West Coast, NZ. We check out the huge Oparara Limestone Arches, Moira Gate Arch, the Crazy Paving cave, Box Canyon cave, and enjoy a short walk around the Mirror Tarn. This small corner of Kahurangi National Park is home to many excellent short walks, that may not be official “Great Walks” but are amazing in their own right. If you are wanting a day trip from Westport, or have finished the Heaphy Track and are after some easy nearby hikes to stretch your legs, these are well worth a visit. We were happy to see that the road to the Oparara Basin was well maintained and accessible with our van.
Wangapeka Tops, Kahurangi NP - New Zealand
A 5 day tramp to the beautiful Wangapeka Tops in Kahurangi National Park in January 2019. Day 1 into Kings Creek Hut, Day 2 up to well positioned Kiwi Saddle Hut and an afternoon climb of Mt Patriarch (1,701m), Day 3 we explored the Luna range tops and ridges. Day 4 involved a traverse of the main Arthur Range ridge. For us it was windy and cloudy throughout until we arrived at the awesomely positioned John Reid Hut when we enjoyed a glorious sunny afternoon and watched the evening light fade over Mt Owen. Is this one of the best positioned huts in NZ? The last day we descended the unforgiving Chummies Track (toll cost for which is one pair of knees) and after a quick swim and a wade across the Wangapeka River we met Sarah to head back to the airport (try her shuttles at
If you enjoy narrow ridge tops with plenty of above the bushline views and some of the best located huts in NZ then this is the tramp for you.
With thanks to Janette Asche for some of the photos used.
Oparara, West Coast
A travel and tourism guide to Oparara near Karamea aimed at people taking roadtrip holidays around New Zealand. The focus is mainly on providing information for visitors who are self-driving visitors touring around in both cars and camper vans. We look at the walks and the scenery in the area. In particular we talk about limestone formations, the walk and the views.
If you’re interesting in getting more detail about walks around Oparara you could have a look at these links:
At roadtripnewzealand we believe that New Zealand is the best worlds best country to tour by car or camper van and we want to share our love of driving holidays with every interested traveller.
For more information about taking selfdrive road trips around through NZ then you have to go to roadtripnewzealand.com and see it all on the map.
roadtripnewzealand.com
roadtripnewzealand.co.nz
That way you can see where everything is when you’re planning your travel itinerary. There’s a bunch of other useful information there about road safety and driving that we hope will be useful for visitors to New Zealand and help keep them safe while they’re here.
Our goal at roadtripnewzealand is to provide the best content on the web for people who are looking for New Zealand’s choicest little places. We don’t focus on places you hear about all the time like Queenstown, Auckland, Rotorua and Milford Sound, we’re more interested in the special little places that make us glad we live in New Zealand. It’s our personal view of our country, what we like and what we love and we hope to give visitors the inside running on the best places to see and the best things to do.
The excellent music is licensed from Alan Ferguson who wrote and performed it and is a total legend.
Blue creek-Kahurangi national park beginners caving trip 2017 nsg
nelson speleological group run trip aimed at beginners, was a beautiful cave with nice carved marble tubes, a good day out in our beautiful country
Oparara Valley Access Road - 1 (return journey) - Karamea
The road, leading to the Moria Gate Arch, is listed in the Off-roading NZ book as 'Grade 2' - it's okay to drive, but be aware of pot holes and gullying.
March 2015
New Zealand: Ep.8 Oparara Basin a Great Coast Road
[CZ] Hned po příjezdu na západní pobřeží, poblíž města Westport, nás přepadl tropický cyklón trvající 2 dny. Bouře kácela stromy a poničila spoustu okolních cest. My jsme ho naštěstí přečkali v bezpečí kempu.
Když se vše uklidnilo, vydali jsme se na sever do oblasti Oparara Basin, bývalou zlatokopeckou oblast plnou jeskyň, která nás naprosto nadchla.
Po té jsme se vraceli zpět na jih a vyrazili na výběžek Cape Foulwind, kde se měla nacházet velká tulení kolonie, ale ve finále jsme jich viděli asi 12.
Nedaleko odtud se nacházeli turisticky známé Pancake Rocks, prazvláštní skalnaté útvary, které před milióny let vystoupili z moře.
Cesta vedla téměř celou dobu podél pobřeží a místy se nám naskýtali pohádkové výhledy. Až na otravné mušky 'sunflies' je to téměř učiněný ráj.
[EN] Right after the arrival to the west coast, close to the city Westport, we were hit by a tropical cyclon that took 2 days. The storm was breaking trees and put most of the roads out of order. Luckily enough we were safe in the campsite at that time.
When everything calmed down again we headed north to the Oparara Basin, a old gold mining area full of caves that has amazed us.
After that we travelled south again and visited Cape Foulwind, where was meant to be a large seal colony. But at the end we saw only around 12 of them.
Not far from there we went to see the Pancake Rocks. Wierd Rock formations that came out of the sea millions years ago.
The road was going by the coast almost the whole time and we were getting some unbelievable views. Apart from from annoying insect 'sunflies' it is literally a paradise.
Karamea River Jet, Garry Howard.Bruce Smith
Karamea River Jet, Garry Howard catches up with Stu an old school mate and takes a blat on the Karamea river. They take Westland Mayor Bruce Smith with them. Brilliant stuff.
Karamea | New Zealand
Some friends and I drove to Karamea for a wee day trip. I caught a few beautiful moments for you all. This was close to my time leaving New Zealand, so getting a bit emotional.
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Music: Voyage - LEMMiNO
NZ Caving - Oparara
Did some exploring in a cave, this is just a small portion of the cave but interesting. When I have time I will stitch all the videos together for a more complete story.
NEW ZEALAND WEST COAST ROAD TRIP | Incredible Hidden Gems
Join me on my West Coast road trip adventure in the South Island of New Zealand. I spent four days exploring the lesser-known northern part of the West Coast which is isolated with incredible, untouched natural beauty.
I picked up my Hertz rental car in Christchurch and drove through the stunning Lewis Pass, did a distillery tour in Reefton, walked across New Zealand's longest swingbridge in Buller Gorge, visited the historic mining area in Denniston, did an incredible Honeycomb Hill cave tour in Oparara Basin, explored the two amazing arches in the rainforest there, had an amazing time driving along the scenic Great Coast Road, admired the Punakaiki Pancake Rocks, joined a Monteith's Brewery tour in Greymouth and finished up in Hokitika.
It was an incredible solo road trip and I loved every second of it. If I can do all this in four days, imagine what you can do in a week!
Read all about my experience with my detailed itinerary and tips here:
Thank you so much to West Coast Tourism for making this trip possible. Check out more info on the West Coast here:
And thank you to Hertz for the epic wheels:
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Karamea River
2 days on the Karamea River from Venus creek
Honeycomb Cave Oparara Basin, New Zealand
Highway to Oparara Arches