Stephanie Browitt

In December 2019, Stephanie Broward, along with her mum, her dad and her sister, flew up from Melbourne to Sydney, where the four of them boarded one of those supermassive cruise ships called the Ovation of the Seas that was going to take the family around the South Pacific.

One of the day trips the cruise was offering when they got to New Zealand was

was the chance to visit a live volcano on an island named Waikare or White Island.

This is New Zealand's most active volcano.

But the Browett family didn't know that.

They weren't told.

Nor did they know that the day before the ship had left Sydney Harbour, the New Zealand authorities had issued an alert that White Island was now entering a phase where an eruption was more likely than normal.

And so on the 9th of December, Stephanie, her dad Paul and her sister Crystal joined a group of day trippers who set out for White Island.

And they went about exploring its weird grey and brown lunar landscape that was splashed with yellow and green.

Then at 2.11pm, as they were walking away from the steaming crater, the volcano erupted.

ejecting a vast amount of steam and gas and smoke and ash and rocks into the sky and across the whole island.

The force of the blast knocked Stephanie off her feet and onto the ground that was now covered in hot ash.

Stephanie, who was 23 years old at the time, suffered volcanic burns to 70% of her body.

22 people were killed.

and many more were left with lifelong injuries.

As Stephanie Browett slowly recovered, she and her mum had to ask the question, how was it that the cruise ship company had decided to put passengers in their care on the most dangerous volcanic island in the world?

Stephanie's written a memoir with her mum, Marie, that's called Out of the Ashes.

Hello, Stephanie.

Like I said, on that day, 2019, on December the 4th, your family sailed out of Sydney on the Ovation of the Seas.

I've been on one of those giant things.