MacRitchie Reservoir a 1st ever in Jan 2021

We have never ever been here as a family. Hey, we’ve only lived in Singapore for 13 years. It is MASSIVE, it is beautiful, it is varied, it has a history, it has nature, it has incredible fauna and flora all on display in front of you, and it even has a sporty angle with kayaking and the like. The tree-tops walk is closed at the moment de to repair and/or Covid sadly, so we resorted to walking around the reservoir. And it was WOW. We’d had lunch down the road at Novena and I thought to walk from there and then start our adventure.

Turns out it was a 3Km walk from Novena, whoopsy. We then did a further 6Km nearly in the reservoir. OK, next time taxi straight to the reservoir and begin our adventure there… But, we did see some amazing things on our walk, including the beautiful Singapore Polo Club and likely the most orange trees I have ever seen in my life at the huge garden centres just before MacRitchie. Of course, CNY is upon us next month.

Let’s be having a little Daddy-Pedia 1st shall we; ‘Before the early 19th century, much of the main island of Singapore was covered with jungle and mangroves. When our man Raffles started snooping around in 1819-ish it was decided to benefit Singapore’s amazing trading location and build some commercial activity. Of course, with more people comes a demand for freshwater, but it took many years before there was a freshwater supply established.

As it became more of a trading post, a lot of the forest was cleared in and around 1820-70. An English gentleman named John Crawford, who lived here in 1823, probably here to shoot all the wildlife (read the blog on the Singaporean Natural History Museum), offered up $1 whilst proposing plans of reservoirs and waterworks. He failed. In 1827 upstep the Chinese and a merchant called Tam Kim Seng threw in $13,000 (a bit more like it) to improve the town’s water supply – but that budget was soon all dried up (excuse the pun).

A reservoir-proper was initiated in 1868, but all the other bits and pieces like pumps and distribution did not happen for another NINE years in 1877. As you can imagine everyone was. a tad pissed off by now with the Govt. In 1891 the capacity was increased at Thomson Reservoir, named after the chap that designed it John Turnbull Thomson – I wonder where that road name come from that leads you to the reservoirs…? The engineer James MacRitchie oversaw this $32,00o expansion and in 1922 the reservoir was named after him, so actually after the Great War.’

How about that…? 100 years it took for the Govt to get its arse in gear and finally construct the reservoir.

Good on you James mate. She is BEAUTIFUL and stands as strong today as she did 100 years ago.

MacRitchie Reservoir a 1st ever in Jan 2021

Have a look at that. This is the dam, AKA pressure valve if too much water gets in there. You decide where, like in The Matrix, do you take the left turn or do you take the right turn. Either way, you are in for a bloody long, but stunning walk somewhere…

For this blog, most of the content is actually in the video link you’ll see below. But I did take a few snaps, one being of one the strangest things I have ever seen as a lover of the wild and nature and natural history. Keep reading…

Jude Jude is King of the Castle. We were supposed to be taking a breather after the very hot Novena to MacRitchie Reservoir walk, but now he saw this and off he went…

As we play at the playground Strawberry Blonde announces that she has seen something in a tree that she can’t work out what it is. Yeah, yeah, OK I’m coming. I slowly wander down thinking it is going to be a cat or something, but then get to espy this up in the tree…

WTF???

I mean it. WTF???

I did some analysis in my brain, whilst all around me were shouting; “It’s a bat…” No, it clearly is not I was thinking. But then also and continually, WTF is it? Covered in fur, OK it’s a mammal likely. Long front legs with what seems to be a lot of stretchy skin. Oh yeah, and it’s halfway up a huge tree. I surmised it was a gliding mammal from my deductions and bugger me I was right. This beauty is a Colugos. Right then and there, I felt like bloody Raffles or whoever it was that found the 1st one of these back in the day. I was super-excited and stood watching this for ages. WOW!!!

So, you have to have Colugos Daddy-Pedia, it is a must; ‘The Colugos is indeed a tree-dwelling gliding mammal native to South East Asia. Amazingly their closest relatives are primates, how about that? They are distant cousins. There are only two species which is also quite amazing: the Sunda Flying Lemur and the Philippine Flying Lemur. I assume this is one of the former as we are miles from the Philippines?

They are the best glider by far of all mammals. They have a furry membrane connecting their cute little face to paws to tail. They can glide between trees for up to 200m, holy shit that is indeed a bloody good glide. I also guessed right that this little one would be nocturnal. This is actually the size of a small dog, like a Spaniel, so actually quite big to be stuck up a tree. They are crappy climbers funnily enough as they lack opposable thumbs and are pretty weak. So they slowly hop up trees as they forage for their stable diet of leaves, shoots, flowers, sap, and fruit. They are solitary which is sad – I even more so now want to shimmy up this tree and give it a cuddle.’

CLICK HERE TO WATCH

Apologies for the length of the video, BUT you will see some amazing things within if you like natural history…

Macaque Monkeys,

Malay Water Monitor Lizards – do they fight or not?

Kingfisher with a lizard, and and and… it’s worth a watch, indulge me…!

OK, something wrong with the APP I used not transferring sound to iMovie and, in turn, YouTube – so here they are one at a time now… Sorry;

CLICK HERE – EXPLORING MACRITCHIE RESERVOIR

CLICK HERE – THE FUNNIEST LOW HANGING BRANCH SCENARIO

CLICK HERE – NEAR FIGHT BETWEEN 2 MALAY WATER MONITOR LIZARDS

CLICK HERE – WILL THEY WON’T THEY FIGHT, THE SUSPENSE IS AMAZING…

CLICK HERE FOR THE APPROACH TO MACAQUE MONKEYS

CLICK HERE FOR MACRITCHIE RESERVOIR MACAQUE MONKEYS UP CLOSE

MacRitchie Reservoir a 1st ever in Jan 2021

My explorers for the days. 3Km in and ready for more of what’s behind them (I think…?)

As we walk off to the first designated pathway I looked back and spotted this most amazing house nestled in the trees. I bet that costs more to rent than my Siglap condo. Fuck me… I think the top floor is the same size as my Siglap condo. That surely is a WOW house!!! I’d even volunteer to be a window cleaner just to hang out there…

I kid you not – this is the last photo of the day as the rest of the fun and interactions have all been captured in video form… Have a watch. I have tried to make them entertaining for you… But here were are all smiles on our way around the reservoir clockwise. All smiles. On the way back the picture would have been not so smiley, sweating, aching, and chased by monkeys (OK I embellished the chased by monkeys to make you watch the video haha).

MacRitchie Reservoir a 1st ever in Jan 2021 was just awesome. Why has it taken 13 years to get here is beyond me. Our BFF’s The Archers did this walk a couple of weeks ago and it made me think to come here too, so thanks for that my lovelies. It is just stunning. I massively cocked up on the ‘short-walk’ from Novena to MacRitchie. In my defence, in Google Maps on my iPhone it was about 1″ away. This place is a must-visit if you have kids, or don’t. A huge green-belt surviving in our Little Red Dot that is teaming with wildlife and scenery to die for. We’ll be back to take the red pill next time, as we explore the anti-clockwise side – another blog to follow from that adventure – ENJOY!!!