The final morning had arrived for 4 us departing today and so I said my farewells and left the observatory with Reece. John and Rodney were on a later flight.
We checked in at the airport where I was questioned about the weight of my hand luggage (14 kgs) but was allowed to take it all on board but it had to separated in to 2 separate bags. Broome international airport is probably the smallest international airport I have been to. It isn't that much bigger than Flores, Azores in-fact I think Flores is bigger. Whilst waiting to board our flight Reece and myself mulled over the expedition and how good it was. Two car loads of expedition members came to see us and say farewell which was really nice.
We took off on time and as we made our way to Perth I looked out of the window at the land beneath us which was pretty much like the photo above throughout the 2 hour flight.
Vimeo-clip above gives you some idea of the area of 80 mile beach from above and the captain advised us we were flying over 80 mile beach f which he said was actually 80 miles long, like I said earlier in this blog it is nearly 200 miles long.
Just as my medication for the flight was working its coarse I reflected back on this Wader ringing expedition and I tried to narrow down the highlights to just a few. There were so many highlights, the waders, the scenery, the people, the atmosphere and the laughs of which there was plenty, however the photo above shows you a Great Knot in the hand (courtesy of Kim). This to me was one of the targets and I must say that Great Knot is a cool wader. From seeing them on the breeding grounds of snow capped mountains in Russia to the wintering grounds of north western Australia this was one of the better highlights of this trip for me . Photo below shows you Chris and Jutta 2 very cool and interesting people who are both excellent at what they do in their chosen fields but also just real- proper decent people who's company I really enjoyed. "Respect"
If ever there was a photo crying out for think bubbles and captions it is this one below, however I chose to leave that (always another time).
