Days 52 and 53, in which we do very little at all

We've spent the past few days just lazing around the house, reading and snoozing and attempting the odd swim. The beach is made entirely from extremely sharp volcanic rocks so getting into the water for a swim is a bit of a challenge, but once you're in its surprisingly warm. There are also super-aerated volcanic rocks on the beaches, which is a bit of a surprise when you swim along and bump into one floating the other way.

As with much of New Zealand, the whole of Lake Taupo was created by volcanic activity. Apparently, we're sleeping on top of a theoretically dormant super-volcano, which exploded so viciously a few thousand years ago that even the Romans on the other side of the planet saw the sky go red. The magma that emptied out into the world on that day left behind a huge underground void, which then collapsed and created our lovely lake.

We share the waters with some very tame ducks, black swans and some black-and-white birds which spend their days sitting on a nearby rock looking for fish. We no longer share the beach house with insects, thanks to a new insect management programme which involves regular blasts of Raid into the rooms we're not using and a 24-hour Raid plug-in.

Our only trip out was to stock up on groceries in Taupo, and we took the opportunity to have dinner out at the Lotus Thai restaurant opposite the supermarket. Unfortunately we didn't get much of what we ordered and so dinner only lasted twenty minutes. Attempts to find out what had happened to the rest of the meal only led to the waiter repeating the word “okay” (the second most widely understood word in the English language, after “Coca-Cola”), so we drew a line under the experience and paid the bill.