The Fenian Track is Karamea’s lesser-known alternative to the Oparara Basin. The track is a wide and easy old pack track and it follows the gorgeous root-beer brown Oparara River upstream to access a separate “Caves” loop. The Fenian Track is the end bit of the 14km Oparara Arches/Fenian thru track, so if you wanted you could continue past the caves another 10km to the Oparara arches.
For adventuresome hikers the Fenian Caves are definitely worth a look! The Caves track loops off, then rejoins the main Fenian Track at two signed spots before the Fenian Creek bridge. The loop is a rough and difficult tramping track, best avoided after a heavy rain. The route is marked by DOC arrows but it’s still difficult to follow—this is no easy-peasy cave look-see, this is an adventure route!
The Caves loop goes past two caves as well as traversing through “Tunnel Cave” (you cannot complete the caves loop without going thru Tunnel cave, and thus you MUST have headlamps!) Inside each of the caves there are small running streams….and streams means glow worms. The caves host arrays of stalactites, but don’t expect any jaw-drop beauty. Tunnel Cave also sports a large glow wormlit “picnic room” with a gurgling 3m waterfall which you must climb up to get through and exit the cave. Overall, the glow worms inside Fenian’s caves may be the most numerous glow worms in any free public cave on the South Island.
WALK: (Two lights minimum!) It’s an easy 45 minutes (4km) up the Fenian Track, around Maloney’s Bluff, then descending a bit to the first of the two signed “caves” loop entrances. Skip the first junction and head 5 more minutes to the second lower one near the Fenian Creek bridge (definitely take a look at this fern-draped, tannin-browned creek). It’s best to do the loop clockwise, so you go upstream through Tunnel Cave. Water shoes are NOT necessary—you can get through the caves, other than Cavern Creek, with dry shoes (in fine weather).
Embarking on the marked cave route you’ll find Cavern Creek Cave in just 3 minutes—this cave is best to skip since it’s slippery and full of sucking knee-deep mud. The marked route bypasses it and goes 20 more minutes of rugged ups ‘n’ downs to an unmarked short side-cave and then to signed Tunnel Cave. Tunnel Cave is about half-way along the route. Into Tunnel you go, ducking a bit at first before the cave opens up into a large glow worm-festooned waterfall room—a good place to sit in the dark and have a snack! A few minutes past Tunnel Cave is the signed entrance to Miner’s Cave. This cave is worth a venture, as it’s decorated with a forest of stalactites. You can descend along the cave’s stream until the passage squeezes down to a netherworld crawl space—turn back wherever you please. Finally, just a few minutes more and the loop rejoins the main Fenian Track.
Left is back to the carpark, but first it’s nice to go (right) down to Fenian Creek, hop down at the bridge, and splash downstream 50m to the midstream boulders where you can rinse the mud off, have a snack, and watch the entire Fenian Creek disappear into a hole!
