standing too tall ;

Saturday, June 07, 2008

风吹雨打，through thick and thin roads, on a walk to remember, we emerged victorious at upper thomson road....

finally after a long time and some hard time in coming up with a consensus date, i met up with group 28 members for MacRitchie Treetop walk today! Everyone was so exciting about it!!

managed to meet them at the correct bus stop at 9.30am and off we go! First of all, we walked by the reservoir, there was a canoeing competition going on, i saw PJC and NUS people over there, said "jiayou" to them in my heart, and we carried on with our journey to the top.

The trail up to the treetop walk is 5km on rocky roads in the midst of the forest. We easily covered 600m and thought this couldn't take us more than an hour. But we were so wrong, because the reservoir started collecting water... that is it started raining, no i mean pouring! Luckily we all brought umbrella, but i still got very wet, from head to toe, from front to back. Many runners, mostly caucasians ran passed us and we also saw romantic young and old couples sharing an umbrella, strolling in the rain. But things weren't so romantic for us....

there were mini waterfalls and rivers along the way, on the trail, oh my poor new adidas shoes. Although I exercised care and caution while walking every step, i still stepped on some soft earth and splashed myself quite often. However after awhile, I got used to it, i took on big and brisk steps, decided to just enjoy this kind of feeling, its really quite okay, except that i tried to push away the thought of how badly damaged my shoes are gonna be....

we finally saw a bright exit to civilised land after walking on for an hour plus, we were elated, thinking that, yes we have reached! so wrong though....
another signage appeared telling us that treetop walk is still 2+km away.

Feeling a little cheated, we walked on still, because there is really no way and no point giving up after conquering 5km! The trail got a little steeper, but we still walked on... and reached the ranger station, some people were taking shelter there, but we decided to go on, as the signage told us treetop walk is 100m away.

once again, we got cheated, the road up to the treetop walk is an upslope, encircling round the centre, it was really steep and definitely felt more like 1000m than 100m. i walked on faster to gain the momentum, and upon reaching a stairways leading down, we felt the energy and effort to climb all the way up is a bit wasted, but at least this time round, treetop walk is really nearing.

the view from the bridge was really fabulous! on such a rainy day, we really didn't know to count ourselves lucky or unlucky, because the water vapour rising up from the forest created a mist, an imitation of clouds. It felt like as if we were really high up in the sky, everything was blurred and weather was cooling!

the trees were really tall, almost the same height as the bridge, think it is 100m, if i m not wrong, and we could see the reservoir from where we were, superb view, really. took a few shots and couldn't really stay for too long because its a one-way and one-person wide bridge. there was a monkey climbing at the top of the bridge and it stopped to pose for us, haha so cute, and we managed to spot a few other monkeys climbing among the trees, sososo cute!

ignoring the monkey poos, we can't bear to leave the bridge, all the effort to get there, and it was a good 250m long bridge only!

at this point of time, we just want to get out of macRitchie, but it also means we have to either walk the same way back or another route to another exit, which was also another almost 4km walk away.

maybe its the rain water, maybe its the tiredness within us, our legs just felt so heavy with every other step taken. at some point of time, we didn't talk, just silent trekking. there were some interesting boards telling us about the forest and the life within. But we didn't stop, blame the weather making our excitement dampened and all animals were hiding somewhere else. Oh my pangolin, my singapore durian, i saw none!

all in all, despite the rain, it was really a memorable and fun walking! Janet got cranky and came up with the title above, which i thought its really apt! haha.. No photos would be shown in an effort to encourage you guys who haven't been there to take on the adventure! I wouldn't mind going there again, but in pretty weather so that i can really look out for animals and unique plants!

munched @ 7:32 PM