Sangeetha's Birthday

Sangeetha's birthday was on 23 Feb as most of you would have already known. I had planned for us to go for an aerial tour of Kakadu National Park. Of course, with both of us being jobless, the funding had to come from our savings so I was a tad bit hesitant. It was going to be a pricey affair at $650 per person. Yeah you read that right... and I know most of you would not agree on spending that sum of money for an hour's ride in a helicopter. To be honest, I had an internal conflict going on as well as to whether or not we should do this tour.

Eventually I got tired of considering and thought, "Ah heck it! Let's just do it." So I told Sangeetha of the plan on the eve of her birthday at 9pm. She was stumped upon hearing the price but it eventually sunk in. Then she learnt we had to leave home at 4am and that took awhile to sink in as well. We had initially planned a nature walk at Holmes Nature Reserve but of course that plan had been well altered by Yours Truly.

Tick Tock Tick Tock... and it was 3.45am. It really felt like I had barely closed my eyes and it was time to awaken. I guess I'm used to it anyway no thanks to crappy Champions League matches that Man Utd were once part of. Well, its been a century (certainly feels like it) since they last competed in the Champions League so lets drop that altogether.

Sun rising as we entered Kakadu

The road ahead

199 km ahead

Now, back on track. Sang and I found ourselves travelling along the roads of Darwin in the wee hours of the morning. There were very few vehicles on the road (no surprises there) and there was very little light as well. Sang was behind the wheel for the drive up and she made sure to stay well clear of the 130km/h speed limit as we were in no mood to smash into any road-crossing wildlife. Staying within the 100km/h mark, we drove through the entrance of Kakadu National Park just as the sun was peeking beyond the horizon. 

Traffic was horrendous

We arrived at Jabiru Airport at 7.30am and after loitering around the premises for 15 min while playing hosts to a company of house flies, the doors of the office eventually opened and we scuttled in to seek refuge from the flying... well er... flies. A quick registration that saw our savings plunge by a substantial amount meant that we were ready for take-off. Our pilot was a nice chap and he brought us on a quick walk-through around the helicopter, strapped us in, gave us a safety brief and we were off.

Sangeetha all ready for take-off

From here on, it was just stunning scenery, beautiful waterfalls and jaw dropping landscapes that no matter how much I type, will not do justice to the view upon us. I have included some photos here for you to admire but the true experience would be to hop on a helicopter and to experience it yourself. All I can say is that I felt really small, almost insignificant as the beautiful landscape stretched for miles. For those in Singapore, Kakadu National Park is 27 times the size of Singapore. That's a really big deal. Anyway, here are some photos.

Hope you enjoyed the pics. After the tour, we headed to Jabiru which was a 5 min drive away. There, we grabbed ourselves sandwiches and some chocolates to celebrate Sang's birthday and began the arduous 3-hour journey back to Stuart Park. With daylight assisting us, we managed to drive at the max limit and reached home half an hour earlier than expected. No guesses as to what happened next. We dropped on our mattress and that was it for us... till 3.30pm. 

At 3.30pm, we freshened up and headed to Kurt's cake shop to get Sang a birthday cake. Back home, we had a simple celebration between the two of us. It was Sang's first birthday away from Singapore but the calls, texts and Facebook posts were streaming in endlessly. In entirety, it was a really good day and both of us enjoyed ourselves. To us, it was money well spent and would highly recommend this activity for all you nature lovers our there. Cheers!