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Richmond services the Waimea Plains, an area of intensive horticulture since the thirteenth century, when Maori established major gardens here. To travel to Motueka, choose between the coastal route on State Highway 60, or a journey inland along the Moutere Highway. Allow at least half a day for either, or a full day for the round trip.

SH60: Apple orchards and their associated buildings fringe much of the coastal highway, as do craft studios. Visit hospitable Rabbit Island across a bridge link over Waimea Inlet, the South Island's biggest estuary.

Moutere Highway: Cross Moutere Saddle, at the northern tip of the second largest plantation forest in the country. Upper Moutere (once also called Sarau) and the Company Ditch were built by German settlers in the mid-nineteenth century.

Side trail: Wakefield This side trail goes south through the historic towns of Brightwater and Wakefield to the restored Belgrove windmill, one of the few remnants of Nelson's never-quite-completed railway.

A statue of Ernest Rutherford as a boy stands at the centre of the elaborate
Brightwater memorial to his later works (Photo: Simon Noble)