My family is visiting New Zealand for the first time, and one of the things I’ve been most excited to share with them is how much I love getting out on the boat.

There’s a very specific type stillness that is my favourite sound and feeling in the world, when you can feel time slip over you and the world feels still. I’ve only found it in three places - in Venice 🇮🇹, at the top of a mountain, and in the middle of a lake. With that goal in mind, we took a trip to Lake Tarawera, a huge 15 square mile lake with Mount Tarawera and its three domes standing imperiously in the background.

I’ve only ever been here once before, and after that trip, I killed our last boat. Everyone tells you to always remember to put the bung in, but they never remind you that if you leave the bung in when you’re done and it rains a lot before you go and check on it again, your entire boat will fill up with water and become dead. That was a very expensive mistake and thankfully not repeated here.

New Zealand did what it does best, giving us a beautiful day with water like glass.

I’ve been down here at the bottom of the world for 4 years now, and every day, I’m so grateful to live somewhere so stunningly beautiful, with these places so close to my adopted home.