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This morning we woke to rain battering the van, we were in two minds as to what to do. Apparently in the rain though you get to see more waterfalls down the mountains than usual and it's still pretty good but we don't have waterproofs and we were thinking if you can't get outside is it going to be worth it. We decided to go, check out for the campsite was 10.00am anyway so we left around 9.00am. We parked close to the offices and went to see about a cruise, the rain seems to be coming in bursts so it didn't seem so bad now but it was misty. There was someone at the place we wanted, they were called Jucy Cruise they seem to also rent a lot of cars and campervans too which we have seen on the road quite often. We bought two tickets after the girl convinced us saying the waterfalls would be amazing. We did have to move the van though to a car park rather than the bus park which we were parked in. After moving the van we got kitted up and had our thin ponchos in our pockets and walked back to the offices. We boarded the boat at 9.40am and set off five minutes later, we were instantly met with the view of the cliffs with a huge waterfall gushing out of the side of it. The next half hour of the trip was us just staring at the cliffs with thousands of tiny waterfalls coming out of them. It was pretty windy at the top of the boat outside but worth being out there. I was over the right hand side of the boat looking out when I saw something in the water, I pointed it out to James saying it was a dolphin. He was looking but was unsure and then it jumped out of the water right next to the boat. It was definitely a bottle nosed dolphin, we couldn't believe it, we told other people on the boat around us and they came to look. There were two and then three of them swimming along side the boat jumping in and out of the water. They were huge animals and we could see them so close. They swam away once we had got out into the Tasman sea. We then went inside to warm up with free coffee and back out to see if we could dolphin spot again, no such luck but the views were still out of this world. We had turned around now and the boat was going very close to one of the cliffs and a waterfall, we were then warned about getting wet, at this point I escaped inside and James not long after whilst the boat was being driven straight under a watefall. The views on the way back were just as good as the way there and just before getting back into the harbour my eagle eyes were at it again when I saw a seal jump out of the water. I showed James and there were two bobbing up and down. It started to throw it down with rain just as we pulled into the harbour so we got soaked walking back inside and then again walking back to the van. We got back for around 11.45am so got some lunch while we were in the car park. We now had to decide what next, we thought we'd drive back out and onward to Te Anau to start with and see what time it is when we get there before making a camping plan. We set off back the way we came yesterday but found ourselves stopping every few metres to take photos of the literally thousands of waterfalls that had formed with all of this rain. One of the most amazing sights we've seen so far! We made a stop off along the way to a place called The Chasm there was a 20 minute walk way to go on to see it whilst it was raining but it's supposed to be worth it. It definitely was, the Chasm was at the middle of the walk and there was a bridge going over the top and so much water flowing down into a hole. There were whole stripped trees stuck down there too. It was worth the walk and probably looked all the better for the rain that was pouring down. Back on the road we made it back to Te Anau with only minimal photo stops. We decided to keep driving south since James felt ok driving some more. We reached a little place called Winton, nipped into a supermarket there for a few fresh bits and had a look around for somewhere to freedom camp. We found somewhere perfect so got parked up and made tea. Hopeefully tomorrow we'll get chance to plan the rest of our journey a little more.
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