New Zealand, Richmond: A Couple of Days Off as Tourists

We passed this church in Richmond when we walked from our Top 10 Holiday Park to the town centre
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It was difficult finding the motivation to do any more hiking or walking in the Punakaiki area of New Zealand's South Island, because we were dejected and disappointed after a failed attempt to see the blowholes at Pancake Rocks spurt water high up into the air. We'd planned our visit there very well, making sure we arrived at high tide, the only time that visitors to the area can see the incredible upwards water explosion. However, on the day we visited Pancake Rocks, the tide either took its time coming in, or was very gentle on its approach to the rocks, thus lacking the build-up necessary to explode.

We weren't surprised by that point in our trip across New Zealand to see English street names
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When we drove north from Punakaiki, a small town on the west coast and starting point for the trail to Pancake Rocks, we made a brief stop for lunch at one of the amazing overlooks at the side of the highway, taking in brilliant views of the rugged coastline whilst devouring tuna pesto pasta that we made in our campervan's little kitchen. The drive to Richmond after lunch took a few hours; it was quite far to cross the island, from the west coast to the northern part of the peninsula, near Nelson, which is where Richmond was situated. At first, we were planning on staying in Nelson, but we came upon the Top 10 Holiday Park in Richmond before arriving there, and stopped to see if there was an available campervan site.

We walked back into town and found a nice cafe, Ambrosia Cafe, where we enjoyed coffees and ate our pizza secretly behind menus

Look closely at the rock and you will see our shadows as we were crossing New Zealand's longest suspension bridge on the way to Richmond
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With the Top 10 Holiday Park chain providing consistent, excellent facilities, we decided to plant ourselves there for a couple of evenings. It was a good thing to do since we had run out of water and the battery for our campervan's internal lights was running low. Dan went inside the holiday park's office to enquire about the price for an evening, and he returned to the campervan, which we named Bessie for our enjoyment and personalisation of the trip, with a large grin on his face. Instead of the usual $34 NZD fee (£13, or $26 USD) for a night's stay at Top 10, Dan managed to book our site for only $25 NZD (£9.60, or $19.20 USD), a bargain and nice way to save a little money, since we had spent more than we budgeted in New Zealand.

Dan thought he would take a break and sit on this large gum tree in Richmond
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After settling in at the campervan site, we took a short walk into the town centre and found a nice pub in which we tried some Kiwi beers and did some writing. We were hungry and ate several packs of crisps (that's the same as potato chips for the Americans reading this) whilst drinking a few beers each. Even after eating several packets of crisps, we were still hungry when we left the pub, and a Domino's Pizza was conveniently located inside a shopping mall that was down the street from where we were. Walking back with our pizza, we were happy to be avoiding cooking that evening in Bessie's small interior, and decided that we would watch a DVD whilst enjoying our dinner.

Kyle really enjoyed walking across New Zealand's longest suspension bridge
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The film we watched on DVD was "Idlewild", one that we had bought in Malaysia back in January, and one that we had procrastinated in putting on, due to some aversion we had to a musical film starring Andre 3000. With our low expectations, the film ended up being better than we thought, but we were glad when the end credits finally rolled, so we wouldn't have to ever watch it, or carry it around for 10 months, again. We had been greedy at Domino's and ordered way too much pizza, so we packed up the leftovers in a large plastic resealable bag and stuck them in our refrigerator to enjoy the next day.

This gum tree in Richmond was the largest either of us had ever seen
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The next day, we definitely enjoyed the pizza again, but it wasn't for breakfast. Cereal was our breakfast food of choice and, after we had eaten a bowl each, we spent some time reading our books before leaving the comfort of the campervan for the day. We walked back into town and found a nice cafe, Ambrosia Cafe, where we enjoyed coffees and ate our pizza secretly behind menus that we had placed standing upright on the table in front of us. Besides talking to a friendly Kiwi family there, we also spent some time putting words to paper, or at least to a WordPad document, so we could post some more journal entries for everyone to enjoy. It helped that Ambrosia had free wireless internet access, too; we took advantage of that!

Kyle thought he would take a break and climb on this large gum tree in Richmond
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The free wireless internet access wasn't shut off when the cafe closed at 5:00pm. Since the cafe was adjacent to the large shopping mall in town, we found some seats just inside the mall and continued using the free wireless internet access from there. We eventually were thrown out of the mall by a dopey security guard who was first going to let us stay inside and lock the doors behind us, but eventually figured out that he shouldn't do that, and he then threatened to call the police on us if we didn't leave immediately. Immediately wasn't an option for us, because we had to shut down the laptop and pack our things away, and he amusingly tried to act like a tough guy who was far more important and superior than we were. It was a funnier situation than it probably reads, so just try to imagine a comedy moment with a shopping mall security guard trying to get all huffy on someone for no reason.

Dan really enjoyed walking across New Zealand's longest suspension bridge
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Our day in Richmond consisted of absolutely no sight-seeing, which is what we wanted it to consist of, and we finished the day by going to a video rental store to rent the DVD "Elizabeth". Neither of us had seen the film and the sequel was opening in New Zealand the next day, so we thought it would be good to watch the first one, in anticipation of us going to see the second one in Wellington a couple of days later. The film lived up to its expectations; we were very impressed with the cast and, in particular, Cate Blanchett's performance as none other than Queen Elizabeth.

The river underneath New Zealand's longest suspension bridge was deep and flowing fast
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After the film finished, we went to bed and awaited our morning's drive to Picton, where we were scheduled to catch the Interislander ferry back to Wellington. We had cereal again in the morning, and left a couple of hours before we were required to check in for the ferry. Kyle had thought it was only around 40 miles to Picton from Richmond, and Dan thought it was farther than that, around 80 miles. With the distance actually being the latter, Kyle had to drive really fast to get there on time, which was scary as we took the vehicle along many curvy and hilly roads.

You can see the longest suspension bridge in New Zealand in this photo
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We made it to Picton on time with a couple of minutes to spare, but as soon as we approached the check-in booth, we discovered that the ferry was running at least an hour late due to high winds in the Cook Strait. It was more than an hour before we were allowed to drive Bessie onto the ferry, and we were glad to have finally boarded the vessel, eager to get back to the North Island and spend a couple of days in Wellington before making our way back north to Auckland, our final destination in the country. On the ferry, we bought fish and chips, and some chicken nuggets, to share, and we washed the food down with iced coffees. Soon after eating, whilst we were backing up some photos on the laptop, we noticed some major changes in the room we were in, namely that it was rocking back and forth quite tremendously.