One thing I forgot to say yesterday was how volcanic the scenery is round here. You move from rolling hills (see pictures of Hobbiton yesterday) to flat fields with bumpy protrusions anything from 3ft to 50 ft tall. Some of them were quite entertaining (sorry no pictures as I was on the bus), such as the large grass covered mound with a basalt slab standing on the top of it as if a bit of Stonehenge had got diverted and a jaunty tuft of grass serving as topknot.

We are staying in a hotel that needed more rooms and decided that ‘industrial estate off the North Circular’ was the way to go. They are quite pleasant little individual sheds inside, complete with microwave, fridge etc. Also got Sky tv which gives a wider range of channels including the BBC! Father Brown and Death in Paradise were on offer last night.

This morning we have been on a boat trip to see an active volcano. It is 50km away and is approximately 16,000 years old. This is apparently very young in volcano terms. It was named White Island by Captain Cook who apparently didn’t get close enough to see it was a volcano. It was mined for sulphur until the 1930s – hence the buildings – and is now a conservation area. Just after I had photographed the buildings – Mad Max 6 anyone? – a helicopter came over and swung around the crater before landing. Upgrade to James Bond, obviously. I thought this would be the time for another selfie.

Tonight we have been out for a Maori dinner. We had a reception in the house followed by a dinner (pig cooked underground for the third time) with dancing and singing. The house has an interesting history. It was made by the local tribe in the 1870s and dedicated to Queen Victoria so that she would have somewhere to stay if she came to visit. A couple of years later it was taken first to an exhibition in Sydney, (where it was put together inside out) then Melbourne, then to the VandA where it ended up in their cellar for 40 years. It then came back to NZ and put in a museum in the South Island and, because it wouldn’t fit, they cut around 2 ft off the bottom of the panels. The locals finally got it back about 20 years ago.