Kakadu NP Pt. 1 - From Above

After a night without much sleep (as I couldn't stop thinking about the shitty start of my trip) I had to wake up at 5.30am to make myself ready for the first day-tour. At 6am I was going towards the Hilton Hotel where the AAT Kings bus picked me up. The direction: Kakadu National Park. Entering the bus I saw that I let the age range drop by at least 20 years, as all the other passengers where at least 60 years old. However, they were super chill and funny, and I immediately became friends with a group of four. On the way to the NP (when I didn't fall asleep) I saw lots of cute little wallabys but couldn't take a picture as the bus drive too quickly. Our first short stop was a toilet break, where I wandered around and found not only some amazing rural decorations but also great bathroom staff. Off we drove to our first real stop: Jaribu Airport. I booked the optional scenic flight over Kakadu NP, which I was very happy about. The ones remaining on the bus would just drive to the next station and not really see much else than already. So I grabbed my water bottle (vital in this kind of heat) and camera and sat next to our driver Ivan. There I reflected on the ridiculousness if calling their highways highways. For me, these roads were normal, if not quite unsafe, country roads... And it was quite amusing that Ivan didn't know why they use km/h although the UK uses mph. After some more chit-chat, we arrived at the airport and got our safety instructions. As I've learned - for the Australians nothing is more important than safety. After that, Ivan called his group out, which included me. Our plane was tiny in comparison to the A380 on my way from Frankfurt to Singapore and over 30 years old... It still looked safe though. When Ivan asked who would like to sit on the Co-Pilots seat, my hand shot in the air and the other lady interested in the spot, gave it to me very amicably.
After boarding the plane (I was not allowed to touch the steering wheel or pedals as they still functioned), we slowly rolled on to the strip and took off. It was weird, sitting in front of a plane, Ivan turning and churning on all these buttons and regulators that I couldn't understand. But it was really cool! The vastness of this land was immense. I mean... The NP is as big as Wales, what the heck? It was all just savannah bushland and rock formation, and one could say it looks quite boring. But it is so immense, so never-ending, that you can feel the importance of the land through and through. We flew to the Jim Jim Falls and Twin Falls, flying nearly 90 degrees to the bottom so that everyone could see. At the horizon you could see bushfires, burning down the dead grass, leaving behind an open space for new plants to grow on. It's a tradition to burn the grass away in the Dry season. That prevents uncontrollable fires to burst out and burn everything down. It's still weird to think of fire and flames to be helping in that regard, but it definitely makes sense.
We finally landed, said good bye to our pilot Ivan and drove to our next station - Yellow Waters Billabong Cruises.Read more