Lake Cobb rainbow

This is the view from the eastern slopes of Xenicus Peak looking down on Lake Cobb. This tiny lake is the source of the Cobb River, which flows into the Cobb Reservoir, providing water to the Cobb power station at the junction of the Cobb River and the Takaka River. Who was this Cobb who gave his name to so many features in this part of the Kahurangi National Park? The only information I could find is that he was a prospector. The region hosted a small gold rush in the 1850s, and that is, it seems, where the name “Golden Bay” comes from, so not from the golden sand beaches. Up here around Xenicus Peak, it’s beautiful, wild country, rocky outcrops with tussock and other low-growing sub-alpine plants giving way to the beech forest that surrounds the lake. There’s a rainbow in this photo, it’s a little bit hard to see, but it runs across the top end of Lake Cobb, through the trees surrounding it.