The reservoir, looking towards the Peel Range west of here

You can tell it’s still early by the long shadows

We go for a little walk, explore the reservoir

I’m no Sherlock but I reckon there were birds here

Looking east, sun is climbing, some cloud forming

Next we have a look at the Trilobite DOC hut here, it looks nice, also quite a few nice hikes in the area

We decide to do the short walk to Myttons Hut

Lovely views

Myttons Hut

Such vibrant colours

I don’t know what it is but some joker put some eyes on it and I think it looks really funny

On the way back from Myttons Hut

Before we leave the area we drive up to the stream feeding into the reservoir again and have another walk around

Because it’s just interesting here

Like those clear horizontal lines on the other side, what created them?

Same lines here, and at one point trees were growing here

At the Cobb Dam on the other (eastern) side of the reservoir

The spillway

The whole reservoir

Along the Cobb Dam Road, it’s a loooong drive out

The Tākaka River

Map of today’s trip, we end up at the Mcleans Recreation Area next to the Motueka River

Always a pleasure to be here, it’s a nice beach

We just made it over the Tākaka Hill and were just shy of Upper Tākaka when I noticed a turn-off that I had never really noticed before, we decide to take it as it leads to the Cobb Reservoir in the Kahurangi National Park where I’ve never been before. Just when we got to the Cobb Reservoir we heard a funny sound, checked and yes, I had another puncture, it seems to be a recurring thing on holidays

This entire area is freedom camping, awesome, we find a fantastic spot

With great views at the reservoir

Today’s trip

This weka is (most likely) the evil thief that managed to steal a plastic zip-loc bag from our table that contained One Square Meals, Uncle Tobys Oats and Cadbury Chocolate bars. You don’t pay attention for 1 second and they grab your stuff and drag it into the bushes, just yesterday they got a bag of bread this way that we were able to recover just in time. Naughty weka!

We want to visit the Ōpārara Arches again, this viewpoint on the way there is new to us, so we have a look

At the car park where the walk to the arches start we see this cute van

Lots of lovely green on our first hike towards the Moria Gate Arch

And I mean lots

Heaps

It’s just a great little hike

Some mushroom

Ferns

The entrance to the arches, Rachel waiting at the bottom of the stairs

The Moria Gate Arch, looking left

Looking back to the entrance

Looking right

Looking straight ahead

Hey, a cave of some sort

Yep, looking cool

The entrance, now functioning as the exit

We continue on our loop track and at some point are able to look back at the arches from the other side

After we finished the loop track we went to the other arch: the Ōpārara Arch, seen here

And here, from ground level

Looking towards the hole that lets in the light

The water streaming through the arch

Stalactites hanging from the ceiling

More green with water on the way back to the car

Back at the campsite, on the other side of that hill straight ahead lies Scotts Beach, with its own campsite

I always love these shots with a single beam of light coming through the clouds

Another view of the campsite

Getting ready for dinner, hungry!

A map of today’s trip, from the campsite to the arches and back

From Tip Top

This is Lou, a farmer, at the start of the tour, telling us about how it came to be etc.

There are tractors here

Cars and more tractors and some more cars

If I am not mistaken everything is still in working order

What car is this?

Lots of signs

Makes sense!

Some big engine and I don’t remember what it actually belongs to, it sure looks powerful

Another tractor in the typical John Deere green

I think this is a McCormick-Deering tractor (I know such things)

Lou’s de Havilland Chipmunk aeroplane, 1946 vintage, this was the plane which preceeded the Tiger Moth

The cockpit

A beautiful yellow car

I think it’s a Chevrolet Corvette, I’m guessing from 2007, type Z06

No idea what these were

There’s lots of different things her, like these accordions with buttons

And these ones with keys

If I’m not mistaken this was some first aid kit from WW1 era

Lots of small little thingies

It’s a great collection and a very interesting tour, thank you Lou and Leslie!

This is the 1st photo of the 3 photos that were taken, this is the normally exposed photo. It has a shutter speed of 1/168s. In the red square you see something that I didn’t notice when taking these photos but that I did notice when looking at the photos back home on my PC

This is the 2nd photo of the 3 photos, taken immediately after the first photo. This is the overexposed photo (brightness manually decreased by me for ease of comparison). The shutter speed of this photo is 1/84s, so the shutter was open twice as long as in the photo above (so 1 stop overexposed). In the red square again the object that was already visible in the first photo, it is traveling towards us. That is: traveling north

This is the 3rd photo, the 1 stop underexposed one (brightness manually increased by me afterwards for ease of comparison), taken immediately after the 2nd photo. The shutter speed of this photo is 1/320s, so this photo should ‘freeze’ the object the best from the 3 photos taken because it should have the least amount of motion blur. Motion blur is caused by the subject moving while the shutter of the camera is open. The object has once again traveled further north

Here is a crop of the object from the 1st photo. A lot of motion blur, I can’t really make out what it is. It looks grey

A crop of the object from the 2nd photo. It looks more square here, it’s clearly lit from above but it seems to have some orange glow on the bottom

The 3rd photo, the underexposed one (brightness manually increased by me afterwards for ease of comparison). This should technically be the most clear photo because of the least amount of motion blur but I still find it impossible to speculate what it is (could it be a weather balloon?). It seems pill-shaped. I find it hard to estimate what height the object is flying at but to me it seems to at least be no higher than the mountains (e.g. the Barrier Range) surrounding the valley, making it unlikely to be anything like a jet plane, it also seems to travel at very high speed, given that the 3 photos were taken within a total time frame of 2 seconds. Three things are for sure though: it’s flying, I don’t know what it is but it’s some object, it therefore is an Unidentified Flying Object, a UFO. I have captured a UFO by sheer luck. The photos were taken with a Fuji X70 on a tripod and in RAW (.RAF) format. Anyone wanting to do their own analysis on the RAW files: contact me