Reflection for Bukit Timah Nature Reserve

The humid weather of Singapore allows only one type of rainforest to survive in its heat and humidity. The tropical rainforest.

The trip to Bukit Timah Nature Reserve was interesting as well as informative as it had much to offer, what with the vast greenery and the natural growth of plants and not to mention that monkeys that lived and roamed in the forest.

Upon arrival, we were greeted by monkeys freely swinging from tree to tree and even walking on the sidewalk. The picture above shows one of the monkeys on the tree, "hugging" the branch. The fact that the monkeys are allowed to roam freely really shows that the forest rangers truly respected nature and also, the animals that lived in the tropical rainforest, like all of us should.

We began our trek up Bukit Timah hill, and the first part of the hill was extremely steep and difficult to conquer. Before I even reached the top of the hill, I was already panting... This is the photo that Miss Lim gladly modeled for us, showing how tall the trees could grow up to. The place she was standing at was not even at the roots of the tree, but in fact, higher!
The leaves of the tall trees formed the emergent, the highest part of the rainforest.

The things a plant would do to survive is truly amazing. Take Lianas for example. The photo above shows the liana coiling itself around a tree, and then attaching itself to a higher tree just to reach the emergent to obtain sunlight. This is one of the many lianas we saw in the nature reserve.

Soon, the path became more gradual, and it was easier to walk up the hill. We saw buttress roots of the tree, holding up the weights of the humongous trees, more lianas, and even some tiny mushrooms growing on decaying tree trunk!

Bukit Timah Nature Reserve has so much to offer, so many different plant species and their fight against each other for survival. This picture shows the sparse undergrowth of the rainforest and the start of the canopy layer.

At the top of the hill, there wasn't much of a view, but we were all shocked. Our walk passed so quickly we didn't even realize that we had already conquered climbing the hill! A large boulder sat on top of the hill, with the height of the hill carved onto it. The height of the hill was only 163.63m! It was then I realized that climbing the hill wasn't so bad after all! I thought it would take ages to conquer it, but the fact that we did it in such a short period of time amazed me.

Then we were asked to sketch 3 different leaves. So I took 3 pictures of different types of leaves, with my finger as a gauge for the length and size of the leaves. Soon, we got hungry and after we finished sketching the leaves, we began to snack on the food we brought to satisfy our hunger.

Finally, we began our trek down through a different path to see a different view. The "lake" was extremely beautiful, although we could only see it through the thick foliage of leaves. However we saw a clear view of it when we walked through another path that led us to a playground, where further up was a crystal clear view of the "lake".

We ended up playing at the playground while waiting for the bus to arrive, it was indeed a fun-filled experience. I felt like I was relieving my childhood days.

We saw many monkeys and one of them even stole Nicole Mui's apple! Here's a picture of one that I managed to snap. Isn't it adorable?

Besides monkeys, we saw lizards on the grass and another on a tree. Both were of different species and it was just fascinating. Before we left, we managed to spot a monkey and her baby on a tree! It was such a rare sight and the baby monkey was simply adorable.

However, all good things have to come to an end... We left Bukit Timah Nature Reserve with fond memories and more knowledge that we wouldn't forget in the years to come.

~Kimberley Lim~