Thursday 24 June 2010

HSBC Tree Top Walk

Talking about Nature Reserves in Singapore, I am sure you have heard of "Bukit Timah Nature Reserves", "Dairy Farm Nature Reserves", "MacRitchie Reservoir" and etc. In this post, I am going to share with you the "HSBC Tree Top Walk" which consists of several long hiking routes in MacRitchie that brings you through different stages of mature secondary forest.

The distance to the entrance of the TreeTop Walk is approximately 2.5 km which is around 45 minutes to an hour walk from the car park at Venus Drive, off Upper Thomson Road. There is also a parking lot conveniently situated at that area.

Along the route, we saw a lot of interesting plants and trees that interests our little darling. To me this is a very good outdoor experience for kids to learn "plants & animals" in real life example rather than from books. For example, my darling can spot the "Giant" Yam plant and Pandan Leaves, can you?

Along the walk, you will see a number of these signboard above showing you the distance between the current position and the Tree Top Walk. To us it seems to be like a motivation "sign" telling us we are just 1500 metres, 1000 metres or 500 metres to our destination.

For those requiring toilets, there is a Rangers Station in the middle of the walk for you to take a rest and use the toilets. But there is no shop selling water or food there, instead there is a water fountain which you can re-fill your empty bottles.

Before approaching the entrance of the Tree Top Walk, you have to walk past a long staircase walkway in order to reach the wood hut. When Rey saw the walkway he almost give up the thought of going down. Because after you walk past the bridge, you have to take the "up" staircase back from another route.

Upon reaching the Tree Top Bridge, all visitors will to pass through a wooden hut with a big sign in front saying "HSBC Tree Top Walk". From here all hikers have to go in single file onto the bridge, and everyone can only move forward and not back.

At 25 metres above the ground, this bridge is only about 250 metres long, so enjoy your view up there while walking through it. It is pretty narrow, so they only allow maximum of 30 person to be on the bridge at the same time.

The walk on the bridge offers you a magnificent bird's eye view of the plants and animals that live in the canopy. At your very eye level you will get to see the lively high life of the forest.

After enjoying the magnificent view from the bridge, it time to strength up and start heading back to the starting point. From the map shown, there is no short-cut to go back to Venus Drive, so we have to take another 2.5 km walk back in order to reach the car park.

Luckily along the way, there are still some interesting sight, plants and insect that capture our attention or else I guess Rey will not have the strength to finished the whole hiking trip. Tree Top Walk opens Tuesdays to Fridays from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm; Saturdays, Sundays and Public Holidays from 8.30 am to 5:00 pm. The Walk is closed on Mondays (unless it happens to be a Public Holiday) for maintenance and research purposes. Posted by Picasa


4 comments:

  1. My son was so scared and almost gave up when he walked on the hanging tree. Luckily he managed to complete the whole loop without much complaints. But my hubby felt cheated when he realised that it was a one-way track. LOL!

    ReplyDelete
  2. lolz... My son love the hanging bridge too... and he really enjoy himself walking to and from the middle of the walkway(as there aren't many ppl on that day). But it's really tiring walking such a long distance just to hav that short walk on that bridge... lolz

    ReplyDelete
  3. lolz... My son love the hanging bridge too... and he really enjoy himself walking to and from the middle of the walkway(as there aren't many ppl on that day). But it's really tiring walking such a long distance just to hav that short walk on that bridge... lolz

    ReplyDelete
  4. My son was so scared and almost gave up when he walked on the hanging tree. Luckily he managed to complete the whole loop without much complaints. But my hubby felt cheated when he realised that it was a one-way track. LOL!

    ReplyDelete

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