Oparara Basin

1st April
We exchanged our van for a hire car and then drove 3/4 of an hour out of town on an old, twisty dirt track, logging road into the Oparara Basin until we could finally go no further. There we met our guide, Bill, who was going to take us into the Honeycomb Hill Caves, a protected area due to the amount of Moa bones that have been found in the area. We took a 40 minute walk through the bush as he explained to us the uses of the different trees, silver beech for cladding, red beech for floorboards, tea tree for the oil and for smoking fish and meats, Maori pepper tree (it also had another name) which has red spotty leaves and tastes a bit like peppery nasturshums (the flowers, phonetic spelling as I don't know how it is spelt!). Bill also showed us the empty shells of someNear the end of our walk we were in 'uncut' native bush, there were loads of large trees and not even a tiny spot of untouched real estate. There are mosses, lichens, ferns, fungi or some other type of greenery on every spot, all living symbiotically and looking fantastic! The rivers here are all an orange brown colour like tea without milk, this is due to the tannins that are washed out of the leaves when it rains, however they are crystal clear too so that we could see some fantastic reflections.
The Honeycomb caves are named due to the over 76 entrances that have so far been found in the hill, they have fantastic stalagtites and stalagmites and some soft limestone (I'd not heard of that before); you can press it and water comes out, I suppose it is like spongey chalk. There are some fantastic formations where the water has been dripping down but instead of forming a stalagmite they have formed a pool around which has grown up a retaining wall from the splashes - like a small raised swimming pool. Also some of the stalagtites don't hang straight down due to the constant breeze through the caves meaning that one side of the formation is bent and more detailed than the other. At one point we could clearly see where an elephant had crashed through the roof and then petrified; it's legs clearly dangling from the ceiling (see the photos). The cave also has a real collection of bones, there are modern ones like deer that have either fallen into a sink hole and died or the bones are washed in when the river floods; there was a kiwi skull; and then several different sets of Moa bones still in situ. There were several subspecies of Moa, the giant one was 6ft to its back and then there were other smaller varieties; we got to compare lots of the bones!
As we walked down the cave we could hear the sound of a waterfall getting slowly louder and louder; however when we finally reached the water, the flow was really quite small; it was just that the echo was incredible. In the pool were two good looking crayfish!
We left the cave through a different hole than we went in. The view up out of the cave was just amazing, up to the green of the ferns and the moss covered trees outside.
After a cup of tea and a cake, provided by Bill, we said goodbye to him and then went to explore the rest of the site that is not protected and therefore can be done without a guide. We walked on a loop track through thte bush past a perfect mirror like lake called Mirror Tarn and then on through fantastic woodland to Moira Arch, a huge limestone arch with full trees growing on the top and a beautiful tea river running through it. Having admired it from the far side of the river we walked over the arch and then descended down into the arch, just so beautiful.
After that we took another shorter walk to an enormous 2nd arch the Oparara Arch, about 40m high, 50m wide and 200m long, you can see in the photos how small and insignificant we are compared to this giant!
Finally we went to visit paving stones cave where the muddy floor has dried and cracked and looks just like paving stones. Inside there are cave whetas and a cave spider unique to this area. It lays its eggs in egg sacs that we could see hanging from the roof of the cave. It was great to be able to go into a cave with no lights, no guide and no huge safety notices. It was just us and our torches and the cold, quiet and dark of an unspoilt cave.
What a fab day!