Warn The Town, The Beast Is Loose

A few weeks back we had a gorgeous day so me, Amy, Colin, Ben, Shanyn, Tim and Ash drove to Long Bay on the North Shore and set up camp on the beach for the avo.  We put on our togs and played Force Back (a throwing game with 2 teams that i have never quite understood the rules of so won't bother explaining - I also spent a good 8 months thinking it was called 'Four Spec' because of the kiwi accent), lazed in the sun and took a quick dip in the rather cold ocean.  We then went back to Colin's house, played loads of VR (Colin's a geek and spent money on a virtual reality head set which is AWESOME and a lot of fun) and had a BBQ.  Shanyn put worcester sauce in the mince and the burgers turned out delish.  We also played a really good card game called Punderdome. It's essentially a cards against humanity version of puns - there's 2 cards with a random word on and you have to make a pun that links them, and it goes to the vote.  Me and Ben were really good - my

We drove on to Fox in the pouring rain and though initially were going to camp, when we did research a hostel room was only $7 more expensive than camping each, so we stayed at  Ivory Towers  backpackers - which, by the way, is bloody amazing.  The lady had blue hair and she gave us the discounted BBH rate for no other reason than she was a nice person, the kitchen was really well equipped and had free tea, there were no bunkbeds in sight and we had our own room.  It was a very lovely sleep indeed! (though I was woken once by Jen sleep talking, "What!!! They've blocked the view of the Haast Pass!" - glad she's getting into the spirit of NZ!) In the morning we embarked on my favourite part of the trip - the Copland Track ! For some reason I was nearly shitting myself over this - I think I'd read too many warning signs on the DOC site about rockfalls and being washed away by the river.  The track starts with a river crossing which I hate - my feet get so cold they