In the night I have to put my jogging bottoms and hoody on again as the room is like a fridge. I've got 10 fresh bites on my left foot alone. When I go for breakfast I realise someone has nicked my box of cereal. Great. I eat a bacon and cheese roll and a yoghurt I have in my fridge bag. I get picked up by a little bus especially for the 'Big Fury' trip at 9:45. There are lots of elderly couples and middle aged couples on the trip. I was told that it's normally all youngsters. Not that it matters too much. When we are all being registered we get asked if we want to pay an extra $7 to hire a stinger suit. Surely if there's such a risk of being nailed by stingers they should provide that for free!? I decline the offer. The jetty to get to the boat is massive and has cool corals growing off it. I can see fish in and around it all. No need for a boat ride to see corals and colourful fish. It's all here at the harbour! The boat ride to Whitehaven beach takes over an hour. It's great whizzing between the islands. It gets pretty wet at certain points with the spray coming into the boat. Whitehaven beach is ranked in the top 10 beaches in the world. The tour guide says that the sand is so fine, NASA have nicked it to use it for something as it stays at 18 degrees. It doesn't get hotter or colder or something. It's like pure glass. The finest of all fine sands. People can clean their jewellery with it but if you get caught stealing any of the sand you can get fined up to $10,000. It is delicious sand. So fine and soft. It squeaks lots when you scuff your foot through it. It's very white and pure. When we get there the tour guides takes some boxes of food to an eating area. In there is a lace monitor lizard. A biggie! It's the biggest lizard I've ever seen in the wild. The tour guide throws it some shrimp heads which it seems to love. I go and look for toilets which are signposted down a route. I follow signs but do not come across a toilet. I just end up on a walk through foliage and bush for about a mile. Perhaps the walk is the toilet. Just choose your bush or tree perhaps. So I did. There are so many lizards on the walk. Ranging from all sizes. I do see another lace monitor on the walk. I feel quite vulnerable on the walk as its through quite dense foliage and I'm only wearing a pair of shorts. My toes could get nipped! It's good though as I can walk through it quite quietly which helps me spot lots of lizards before they get a chance to run off when they hear me. I creep around and keep my wits about me. After almost every 5 to 10 steps there is something scurrying off near me. I reach a nice view point where you can see off both sides of the island. It's quite beautiful. By the way it's quite cloudy today. The sun rarely comes out. After the view point at the top I continue and suddenly get stopped dead in my tracks. The hairs on my body raise instinctively. There's an absolutely massive spider just 3ft from my face. I cannot believe how big it is. It's another golden orb spider but it's a slightly different type to the ones I've been seeing. Plus it's twice as big as the rest. It's the same size as my outstretched hand. I try and get good photos of it. It's hard photographing spiders because the camera wants to focus on the foliage in the background. I have to hold the camera just a few inches away from it. I learn it's best to make a video of it close up. Let it focus on it in the video then just take screenshots of it looking it's best in the video for the best photos. I spend a good 10 minutes looking at the spider. I bet it's web is really strong but I don't dare to touch it. Its a fascinating creature. I don't see any snakes on the walk which is probably just as well as I'm bare footed but right at the end of the walk I see another quite big spider. It's not like one I've ever seen before. It looks like it has only 4 legs bit it just has its legs in 4 pairs really close together. Tis yellow and black in colour and about the size of a tennis ball. No idea what it's called. Will try and find out though. When I get back to the group I find out I've missed out on the food. There is still some potato salad and pasta left so I munch a couple of plates of that down but all the meat is gone. Oh well. I had fun. I was about to have some more too with a lace monitor lizard. There are now 2 of them hanging around. I go get some beef jerky and throw a bit on the ground for 1. It likes it but struggles to eat it properly off the ground. I make a good video of me hand feeding it. It darts its tongue slapping each of my fingers individually and the beef jerky before it bites it. It gets nearer and nearer to my fingers though. It's an amazing experience to not just see such an animal in the wild and close up but to actually feed it from my hand. We stay on the beach for 2 hours in total. My walk took at least an hour. We board the boat again and take a short journey to the snorkelling location. There are a few other boats anchored up along this stretch of beach. The captain throws some bait out on the water and it's almost immediately eaten by fish. After getting the talk and sorting out equipment I jump in and straight away am surrounded by multi coloured fish. Probably because matey threw the bait down they all seem to have gathered. I'm probably about the 20th person in the water. I would have thought that they would have all been scared off by the people jumping in by now but no. They don't seem fazed by snorkelers at all. It's beautiful. The corals are almost just as beautiful and colourful as the fish. At one point I stick my head up and clean my goggles. When I put my head back down in the water there is a fish right in my face. I'm surrounded by them. I reach out to touch them a coupe of times but they're too fast. At one point one fish keeps trying to eat something on my belly. Not sure what. Perhaps the string from my shorts. I'm surprised how tame they are. There are lots of black and white striped ones which impressed about. They are the most common. A couple of times I set my sights on one big colourful one and just follow it around for a few minutes. The bites on my feet are itching so I hold my knees up to my chest and itch my feet whilst bobbing around looking at the fish. I realise that the fish are loving the flakey bits of skin that come off my feet when I'm itching them. Over on the shore 2 Swedish lads are getting picked up by a little boat the tour guide is in to get around to us snorkelers quickly if needed. They are the only other 2 apart from me not wearing stinger suits. Something has freaked them out and they were too scared to swim back to the boat. Great, now I'm the only one without a stinger suit on because something has freaked the other 2 out. I don't really care though and just carry on. I'm provably in the water for about an hour and I'm one of the last out. It was a great experience. The boat journey back is a bit gruelling though. I'm sat at the back and the sea is real choppy and rough. The spray over the boat and into the back corner I'm sat in is insane. I get drenched. The sea is quite warm but it's the wind against the wet clothing which makes me so cold. A few people try to escape the hellish corner but told to get back over there to balance the weight in the boat out. We just have to put up with it. The others get their towels out and use them as shields. I don't have a towel so just stand up with my back to it and shiver it out. The journey seems to take forever. When we finally get back I walk back to the hostel which only takes 10 minutes. I'm dying for a nice hot shower. It's the first time I want a hot shower over here as opposed to s cold one, but it's the first time the hot water has never worked and I have to take a cold shower. Not nice. Will probably have a cold tomorrow. I'm so tired I can't be bothered to cook anything do get a fish & chips from over the road. It was absolutely rank. I think living in such places as bude, exmouth and Newcastle, I have been blesses with good quality cod. I presume it's the same everywhere but it really isn't. It's minging. They honk a load of salt on the chips too and no vinegar. I did not enjoy it. I'm so kippered I brush my teeth and get into bed at 8pm. But by the time I finish writing this it's nearly 10pm. 5 Swedish girls come into the room. 2 go straight to bed. The other 3 go straight out. However I know that when travelling, no swede ever stays in. I was right. At 10ish the 2 that went to bed are up and go out on the lash aswell. I'm asleep by 11 with the help of music in my ear gogs.