Camping at Pulau Ubin

Camping at Pulau Ubin is an interesting outdoor activity at Singapore - in addition to hiking, biking, kayaking and bird watching, one might also be able to see tide rises and falls, darker sky and more stars at night.

It also poses many challenges. First of all one can not back out of  it after 7pm when the last ferry leaves the jetty, one can not leave too early either before 7am next morning when the first ferry arrives from the main island. 

We camped at Pulau Ubin from June 7th to June 8th, a long weekend. 

Just preparing for the camping generated excitement! because we had not camped for 4 years. On the island, we enjoyed biking, butterfly watching, short hikes, and bird watching. Despite consistent 30+C temperature, we did not feel it due to constant sea breeze. However it was not all good. The downpour starting at 4:30am on June 8th led to 1 inch water accumulation in the tent! Heavy rain outside the tent, light rain inside the tent, we had to raise the umbrella until the rain stopped. 

Here is the full story.

Getting to Jelutong Campsite on Pulau Ubin

June 7th, 2025 was a beautiful day. We drove to Changi Point Ferry terminal - park at Changi point public car park 1, and took a ferry to Pula Ubin. 

With a dolly, the camping gears, food, water and other stuff was not too heavy to carry from the jetty to the campsite. The campsite is right by the water of Johor Strait. We picked a place near a firepit on bare ground to avoid ants and bugs, set up our tent under trees. We were the only people at this section 2 of jelutong campsite at the time (~ 10:30am). Our plan for the rest of the day was to visit the butterfly hill, then rent bikes to tour the eastern Pulau Ubin. After that we would have a late lunch at the largest restaurant on the island Season Live Seafood Restaurant. We would rest in the tent for a while before cycling through the western Pulau Ubin.

As we were about to leave the campsite, another group arrived - two men with 3 boys. They told me that they would only camp during the day time, and would leave in the afternoon.

Our tent was set near the camp fireplace

Cycling through Pulau Ubin

Cycling is the best way to see Pulau Ubin because it is a bit large for walking around in a few hours. 

We rent bikes near the jetty, S$8/day. 

We first biked on sensory trail to a small beach, then to Chek Jawa Wetlands. Mostly shaded, paved trail provided pleasant condition for riding the bikes. We have been here a few times before. The scenery is as beautiful as it has always been. 

The Lily pond by the sensory trail

The small beach by sensory trail

Chek Jawa Board Walk near low tide

At Chek Jawa Wetlands, the board walk is the main trail where bikes are not allowed  - the initial portion of it was under scorching sunshine since we got there around 12:15pm. 

View of the strait and and the main island from Jejawi viewing tower was great. Another point of interest is chek jawa visitor center - which has a small exhibit of marine life at the wetlands, and a viewing jetty. The jetty is a good place to view the frog island and water fowls near and around it. Unfortunately there were few of them - due to recent spill at Johor Harbor.

view of Johor Strait from Jejawi Tower

view jetty at Chek Jawa visitor center

a Giant extrication boat passing by frog island

It was 2pm when we completed cycling through the eastern part of Pulau Ubin, and we went to have lunch at Season Live Seafood Restaurant. 

We were tired after hours of hiking and biking in the hot weather, so we went back to our tent for a nap before cycling the western Ubin.

steamed whole fish for the late lunch

view of the trees from inside the tent: It was much hotter inside the tent than outside, we removed the tent canopy the let hot air out and wind in.

our rental bikes

The cycling to the western Ubin was limited because we could not ride on mountain bike trail. We rode all the way to the end of the paved ketam mountain trail, then returned. 

A few episodes on this portion of cycling is worth mentioning.

We happened to witness a guy caught a fish during a stop by water's edge of the strait. I noticed a fishing pole bobbing and then a guy rushed to the pole and trying to pull the fishline in. It took him quite some efforts, and the big fish was finally in his hand.

Caught a big fish

The Ketam Quarry is beautiful, which can be reached via a side branch of the bike trail. Another place is Puaka Hilltop with a view of Ubin Quarry.

We ended the biking and returned to our tent. by 6:30pm.

Ketam Quarry

Ubin Quarry with Johor strait in the background

Camping overnight, the thunderstorm early next morning

We had a simple picnic dinner - bread with ham, some veggies and fruit - on a mat over grasses by the water. Afterwards, we played puzzles, Lily Rubik's cube, me  - a 3D puzzle. I finished mine in about 10 minutes. She was bothered by our noisy neighbor, could not concentrate on the cube and did not complete it. We sat on the mat a bit longer, moon was shining overhead, and lights on the main island were really bright as well...part of the infamous light pollution of Singapore.

We noticed that we got a neighbor at the campsite during our return to the tent around 3:30pm - a group of six young men, they set their tent at the other side of the fire ring. We thought they would leave in the evening. They did not. After dinner, they became very loud, singing along with songs played on their boom box, talking over the loud music ... 

When it was getting dark, we went into the tent and listened to an audio book amid the loud noise from the other tent. We somehow fell asleep.  We were awaken by the rising temperature in the tent, and the loud noise around 9:30pm.

We removed tent canopy again, and went to water's edge to cool down in the breeze. We waited until 10:30pm to ask the group to turn off their audios, lower their voices. They agreed, and quiet down gradually. 

Eventually we fell asleep.

We were awaken again, this time by thunders and strong wind around 4:15am, and we did nothing, laying on the air mattress. As the wind got stronger, and scattered large raindrops start to fall. I got up and rushed to put on the tent cover. It started to pour seconds after I got back into the tent.

In minutes, the tent soaked through, it leaked from top and all sides. Basically we had light rain inside the tent. We sat up on the air mattress and opened the umbrella with not much help. 

Water accumulated around the depressions under our bottoms, and accumulated in the tent.

We put phones, watches, wallets into a plastic bag, put camara, cloth, backpack ... into a water resistant bag, and put everything on air mattress.

When the rain finally stopped after 40 minutes, we were soaking wet, and there was 1 inch water in the tent.

Around 6:30 am, our neighbor got up quietly, trashed their tent, and left in silence.

We got up shortly afterwards and took down our tent, packed up everything, and moved to the gazebo nearby. 

Our original plan to bike to Chek Jawa to watch sunrise was discarded. After a quick breakfast, we retuned the bikes we kept overnight and went to the jetty for the next ferry back to main island and go home. The plan was derailed because there was only 3 passengers waiting to leave - the ferry needs 12 passengers to run.

Fortunately the sky was clearing up, the Sun shone. We decided to go bird watching and go home later!

Flora and Fauna 

June 7th was a great day for biking and sightseeing, but not so good for bird watching.

During biking on June 7th, we saw a lot more monkeys than we ever seen at Pulau Ubin. The monkeys would sit in the middle of roads at some junctions, or the side of the trails, waiting for people to feed them. We saw oriental pied hornbills several times, including a manmade hornbill nest.

a hornbill at a manmade nest

We also saw white bellied sea eagle soring over the Johor Strait upon first arrival in the morning. In fact we saw the eagles multiple times in a short span including two eagles playing with each other over head.

white bellied sea eagle

But we did not spot water fowls at frog island as usual, we did not see egrets or herons at Pekan quarry as usual. It was all changed for better on June 8th morning after the predawn thunderstorm.

We went to butterfly hill again.

The flowers' color were brighter dripping with water droplets.

The butterflies were out in trove.

We saw egrets and herons back to Pekan Quarry. We witnessed greater crested terns diving into the Pekan Quarry many times - but they were  too far and too fast for me to take good pictures of them. A white bellied sea eagle flew by, and perched in a tree across the pond. Most amazingly there were multiple stork-billed kingfishers flying around nearby. There was a common kingfisher joined the fun momentarily before flying away.

It was almost 10am, we started walking back to the jetty. On the way, a colorful bird flew across the road ahead of me. I looked for the bird, and found it resting on a tree branch by the roadside - it was an emerald dove, the 189th bird I recorded on my camera!

Shortly after we got to the jetty, we were on the way home.

a white bellied sea eagle perched on a tree branch in this picture

two stork-billed kingfishers on this bamboo branch 

the blurred image of a common kingfisher 

An Emerald Dove

Appendix - Preparations

Since we had not camped for over 4 years, we started the preparation a few days ahead of the camping date, we dug out camping gears - tent, tarp, air mattress, ai pump, flashlight, ...checked everything. 

We test set up the tent  in the living room without issue; however the flashlight with built-in rechargeable battery did not work - no more charge left, the air mattress could not be inflated because the air pump did not work - batteries in the pump were corroded. Those problems were easily solved with recharging, and new batteries.

With food, water, sandals, games, chargers, sunscreen,  bug repellent ... the stuff became too heavy to carry. So we bought a dolly.