Andrew was working on Wednesday night and was sleeping through the day, so I was off on my own. I had a late start, working on my travel blog and writing up some postcards, and headed out just after noon. My first stop was for a hike in the MacRitchie Reservoir National Park. Since I was running late, I grabbed a KFC Spicy Zinger on the way to the MRT (it was the same as at home). I took the train up to a station near the park and hopped a cab from there. After finding my way to the trail, I set off. It was real tree-ey.
There are a bunch of trails in the park, but they aren’t very well used. Just after I took the branch to the Tree Top Walk (my destination) I saw a pair of monkeys off in the trees to my left. I got one quick picture before they disappeared into the bush.
The trail consists of a 2.5km trail to a ranger station, 500m past that to the Tree Top Walk, another 2km looping back around to the ranger station, and 2.5km back out. The opening part of the trail is beside the Singapore Island Country Club and then a military installation. When i was about 500m from the ranger station, I heard a loud air raid siren and wasn’t too sure what was happening, until it was followed with an announcement. It stated, “Lightning storm approaching, move off golf course immediately.” At least it wasn’t something to do with the military, but I was out hiking. So I quickly put the rain cover on my backpack and grabbed my umbrella.
Thankfully, not too much rain made it down through the trees. Almost at the ranger station there was a fork in the trail and a shelter hut there which I raced into. The lightning was close and all around and the rain was coming down in sheets. They have large open channel culverts that all the rainwater flows through. The one at the bottom of the valley in the park was 1m deep and almost full.
An older gentleman from Newcastle, England joined me in the shelter for a bit before heading off to the ranger station. As did 3 kids who headed back out into the rain saying that it wouldn’t stop soon. I just sat there, had my lunch, and read some from one of Andrew’s Singapore travel books. The path was flowing like a river, and I waited there for an hour before it was “passable” again, and I headed up to the Tree Top Walk.
There is a large gorge that they have put a suspension bridge across so you can see all the different vertical layers of the forest.
There was a monkey that was eating some nuts at the top of a nearby tree.
The views from the bridge were kind of surreal with the mist lifting off the forest.
Heading down and back around to the ranger station was mostly a boardwalk with steps. It was so hot, humid, and damp, that just standing and breathing made me sweat profusely.
On my way back out, I ran across some more monkeys. They were all over the place and there was one quite near the path.
From there, I grabbed a cab over to the Botanical Gardens, changed my shirt and left my pack in a locker and wandered around for a bit. I went into the National Orchid Garden which had some really nice flowers in it.
Again not eating all that extravagantly, I grabbed a hot dog from the concession before cabbing it over to the Singapore Zoo for the Night Safari. The Night Safari is essentially a zoo at night. Focused on nocturnal animals, they have a show, three areas you can see on walking paths, and one other on a tram ride. Their show was like most zoo shows, with some animals doing some tricks. The tram ride was pretty good showing a variety of animals from mostly Asia, especially a ton of different deer species. However, it was constantly moving, and with very low light, so there weren’t to many good pictures. Walking was pretty good to get pictures, unless it was at a place where the glass was fogging up from the humidity. The best picture I took was of the leopards.
From there I just hopped a cab back home and headed off to bed.
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