Directions

From Westport take State Highway 67 to Karamea (allow one and a half hours) – then allow another 50 minutes driving time to get you into the carpark areas of the Opararara Basin. Drive from Karamea, 10 minutes north on the Karamea-Kohaihai Road. Turn right off this road on to McCallum’s Mill Road.

For the Crazy Paving and Box Canyon caves, continue another 2.5 kilometres down the main access road from the second car park and picnic area. To access the caves, you want the third car park.

Warning: This reasonably well maintained gravel (shingle) road is not suitable for large motor homes or buses. To drive it safely, keep left, watch for oncoming traffic, and keep your speed down.

Crazy Paving & Box Canyon Caves (5 minutes one way)

The Oparara Valley and Basin, hidden away in the warm rainforest of the northern West Coast, is a very special place.

Part of the Kahurangi National Park, it offers an amazing combination of 400 million year old granites and younger limestones, sculptured by nature into breathtaking forms, arches and land bridges…plus ancient fossils, creatures, cave formations and rare wildlife and other creatures.  Its beauty, born of a million years of isolation, is something you will carry with you for ever.  Do not miss this area.

You can walk it, bike parts of it, explore the small public access caves; or through the Oparara Valley Trust you can do guided tours through the World Heritage Honeycomb Cave Systems (see their listing on this website) or inquire at the Karamea Information Centre www.karameainfo.co.nz

The Crazy Paving and Box Canyon Caves are open to the public and right on the surface so even for folk who are fearful of enclosed spaces, they are wonderful to explore.  One word of caution – if you are critter-phobic you may choose not to do this.  Extraordinary ancient creatures adapted to a world of darkness such as long-legged cave wetas and spiders do live in these caves – not that they’re the least bit interested in humans.