MacRitchie Reservoir Park is the most beautiful park we have visited so far at Singapore. Its natural beauty beats the elegant exquisite makeup of Garden by the Bay.
The Reservoir is Singapore's oldest reservoir which was completed in 1868 by impounding water from an earth embankment, and was then known as the Impounding Reservoir or Thomson Reservoir.
We visited MacRitchie park on September 4th, a beautiful Saturday.
That morning, parking lot was at capacity, the trail head was crowded ! Somewhat similar to the east coast park we visited a few week earlier. The southern portion of the trail (mile 0 to 3 in the first photo), has a trail made of mostly board walk on the water, with little shade; mile 4 to 6 , in the woods, Jelutong Tower is located in this section, mile 6 to 8, boardwalk by the lake again, well shaded. We enjoyed the second part of the hike more because of fewer people on the shaded trail, we could look or observe nature at will. We stayed at the park for over 5 hours, from 9am to 2 pm, we hiked, rested, enjoyed the flora and fauna along the way, and took many pictures.
The lake
As we walked around the lake from morning to afternoon, the hue of light changed, the angle of sun rays into the waters changed, the surroundings to the water changed, with these changes, we observed the changing color of the water of the reservoir from clear, green to emerald green.
reflection of the sky
the water is actually clear if one looks down at water's edge
There are lanes in the lake for kayak/canoe practice
Perceptive green water afar
4 colors or 5 colors: clear, blue, white, green, emerald green
Emerald green
The flora
There are many types of trees, plants at the park, like many other parks in Singapore. One highlight of our hike was the unimpeded view of the forest at the park in all directions on top of the Jelutong tower. The tower was a 7 story observation deck, a green painted steel structure, well blended into the surroundings. Unfortunately another tree top feature - the tree top walk, a 250 meter suspension bridge connecting 2 highest point at MacRitchie, was closed for maintenance.
Jelutong Tower
View from the top of Jelutong Tower
looking up
view at eye-level
boardwalk in the woods
The Fauna
We saw quite a few animals on this trip. We were greeted by a commotion of long tailed macaques (monkeys) in the trees near the start of the southern board walk; later on some of them descended onto the boardwalk, sitting there, not afraid of people passing at all, one actually got into shallow water. Then a large fish stealthily swam near the edge of water under the grass. Birds flew up and down at water's edge, few of them actually perched on hanging vines for a few seconds before flying away. Many more chirped in the dense trees safely unseen. Later on, along the 6 -8 mile section, around 1pm, we encountered a family of monkeys on the boardwalk on the northern side of the lake. A monkey mother actually smiled at me, but cautiously held tight of her baby when I passed by them.
There are reptiles in the park. We saw a monitors ( a type of big lizard) along the trail, and then had close encounter with a brownish snake, which was slithering down a tree, and quickly retreated before I could take out my camera. As I bemoaned the lost opportunity, a green snake appeared in the tree, it had a black head, and staring at me from the tree!
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