when it was time to say goodbye to the bay we celebrated by rushing to finish everything that still needed to be done, having lunch, hanging out a little, and grilling out with friends.

goodbye beach:

 goodbye monkey bar:

goodbye curry and delicious magnums:

goodbye lemon lime and bitters, goodbye timtams:

 goodbye caravan!

 here we all are on our last afternoon:

 the girls and i combined all of our different colored polishes and had a polish party.

 ^^grilling out on the porch. des made us sofrito! and she and doris made hommeade mac and cheese and burgers :)  i guess sometimes we do eat really well in the bay.^^

 the sharkys came over and we hung out for a while.  i'd say we had a golden gay time.

the hardest part of leaving the bay is saying goodbye to the water and the life in and around it.

 ^^the shop has a stuffed animal representation of the main animals in the bay.  i wanted to buy all of them! emu, literal tiger shark, dolphin, pelican, kangaroo, i'll take them all!^^

so we had a full day of goodbyes and then headed out the next morning on a dash 8.  it was very exciting to get to fly down to perth!! not only does that mean we have a 2 hour flight instead of a stressful 10 hour drive on an isolated highway full of road trains, it means we get to see awesome views of where eric has spent the last 6 years doing research from the sky!

 this is denham, the town we drive to every week or two for groceries:

 below is peron station, your last stop before deflating your tires to drive on the road to peron point:

 we flew north and then flew south which allowed us to see peron point!  that point out there is what i've been posting about (here and here) with all of the filming going on.  can you see any beaching dolphins?!

 ^^so point peron is on the left of this picture, and to the right you can distinctly make out the channels off the tip.  these are the channels where eric runs transects to study the sponging dolphins.  it's very cool to actually be able to see the channels.  you know they are there because the gps onboard the boat tells you they are there, but seeing is believing!^^

 ^^at one point we flew through some clouds and this bizarre looking shadow of the plane surrounded by a weirdly colored rainbow appeared.^^

and finally.... hello perth!  such a different landscape.

hello beer flight!

and hello real food!  so happy to be back to civilization.   maybe a little too happy :)

we spent a lot more time up at peron this summer with a second film crew trying to get footage of the dolphins beaching.  i talked a little about beaching when the first film crew was came, but basically beaching is when a dolphin is chasing fish close into shore and then traps the fish between itself and the beach.  it will then swim really fast and hydroplane out of the water, up onto the beach, grab the fish, and then slide back into the water.  it's a very cool behavior to see in real life.  if you can see them doing it.

we think dolphins beach on an incoming tide, or at least around high tide, but you never know when they might decide to do it.  and you never know how the weather will be, or if the mullet will be in.  that means that in order to film them doing it, you basically need to be on the beach, all day long, with lots of patience.

this is point peron from the boat.  some of us can hop off the boat and wait for beachers while others stay on the boat watching dolphins out away from shore.

 the other way to get to peron is by truck.  it's an hour and a half of off-roading through thick sand like this.  you don't want to drink your morning coffee before this ride! (it's very bouncy)

 once you get there by car, you hike down to the beach, and it's an incredible landscape.

 and once you're down on the beach.... you wait.  some days you wait all day long and never see a dolphin.  it can sometimes be boring, but usually there are lots of other things going on to check out.  like sea stars washing up that need to be thrown back out (unless they're already dead).

 or all the birds! there are so many birds at the point and they're fun to watch and take pictures of.  seagulls are so annoying and common, but get them in their element on a remote beach with other birds and they're actually pretty beautiful.

 another common bird in the bay is the shag.  here are some shags on the beach.  they are funny and quirky little guys.  they should have british accents.  "i think i'll go for a swim" "that sounds like a fine idea, shall we?"

 and sometimes while you're waiting, a big rainstorm comes!  it looks more ominous than it turned out to be.

 the beach ofter the rain was really pretty.

 and then guess what happened?  this amazing rainbow!  eric is out on that point under the rainbow looking for dolphins.

 and THEN guess what happened.  double rainbow all the way! i've never seen a double rainbow, it was quite exciting.

for all of the waiting you sometimes get lucky.  the fish are there, the weather is right, and in comes a dolphin.  here is fred getting some footage!

 this is what beaching looks like.  cha cha is getting speed and beginning to hydroplane.

 and here she has got the fish and is gliding back into the water.

 it isn't as exciting in photos as in real life or video.  if you're interested to see all of the action there's a very cool BBC movie that eric helped make a few years ago.  they got beautiful shots of the beaching plus lots of behind the scenes footage (eric and others on the beach).  here's the link, the beaching part starts at 8:28.

peron is really a beautiful spot in the world.  we're lucky to get to spend time there.  if only we could bring the girls! they would love it.

^^heron at point peron^^ :)  one of my favorite pics from the summer.

we finally got our wedding pictures and have had so much fun looking through them three months later.  it's like re-living the best day ever.  we loved our photographer, nathan russell (who had these ready and sent two weeks after the wedding but australia is far away), and were excited to see how they came out.  we think he did a beautiful job!!

i have so many favorite things and moments from our day.  the flowers to die for. the delicious food. a perfect dress. a perfect man.  here are some of my favorite photos :)

photographer: nathan russell photography

venue: heart of texas ranch

flowers: rosehip flora

makeup: adrienne pitkin

dress: tadashi shoji