The Southern boundary of the Galatea Plains is the Whirinaki River which descends from The Ureweras and joins the Rangitaiki River below the township of Murupara.
The Murupara Branch (incorporating the Kawerau Branch) was a branch railway line from the East Coast Main Trunk at Hawkens Junction near Edgecombe via Kawerau to Murupara; built to serve a new pulp and paper mill havesting the radiata pine trees of the Kaingaroa Forest on the Kaingaroa Plateau in the Bay of Plenty, New Zealand.
One of his teachers at the Murupara school was Bruce Biggs, who later became a prominent Māori academic and mentor to a generation of other Māori scholars.
State Highway 38, from Wai-O-Tapu via Murupara to Wairoa, leads through the Ureweras.