Wild tigers in Dairy Farm

free carpark off Dairy Farm

Compared to the Bukit Timah hill, parking was a breeze at this large carpark off Dairy Farm Road.  The entrance to the Wallace trail looked new, with a large map and seating area. Beside this section, were airy, lightly fragranced washroom facilities. Impressive. I turned left and followed the clear directional signs to the 1 km trail. Ladies shouldn’t walk without company, as I was virtually alone at 10am. I sauntered up the bitumen road and turned into the jungle trail.

Wallace loved durians

The picture of Wallace stared at me from a poster. What struck me: he was a friend of Charles Darwin; he lived and explored the Malay archipelago; and he loved durians! An angmoh who appreciated the king of fruits, and those were the wild durians, not the modern hybrids.

out of bitumen into mudtrail

across streams

roots

The path was narrow and damp, and at times muddy. I could see why they used this for education. The singing of birds and cicada, the hum of traffic from the Bukit Timah expressway, the variety of fauna and butterflies caught my attention at various points in the trail, and would certainly be talking points for the nature guide. Under the shade of tall trees, the air was cool. A monitor lizard about 4 feet long crawled nearby.

hunting for tigers

This jungle area was once  infested with wild tigers. Unfortunately, the last tiger was shot in 1932. Can you imagine if there were still wild tigers in Bukit Timah and Dairy Farm as there were a hundred years ago? Wouldn’t it be interesting to see the amount of respect for wild animals and nature that would generate? Now all that can be seen were  immoveable fat cows, haunted houses and fungi.

fat cow

haunted house?

fungi ?

The leisurely trek took about an hour or so. There was another trail leading to a quarry but I decided to stop, because the path that led there was exposed to the late morning sun and heat.

Another day lah.

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Comments

  • Don’t waste time walking to the quarry. Because you can access via the RailMall car park. Just try climbing up to the summit. Good training for trekkers.

    Shalom

  • haha nothing controversial and hence low post count for the past 2 updates eh? =)

    Been to this area when i was very young (think pri sch). Singapore has many nice and scenic areas but the weather is really not conducive for exploring.

  • Hmm….Thanks for your regular advertisements of places of nature in Singapore. Can’t beat Colorado and their 53 14ers lah 🙂

    Emmanuel, I’m waiting for his promised “Not afraid of prosperity” post he promised me! That’ll get things going! 🙂

    • Hi Boon Sing,
      I already went there. I agree with you. Wasn’t a trek.

      Hi Emmanuel and Stillhaventfound,
      Stopped looking at Google Analytics and Blog stats for some time. Want to write whats on my mind and heart and not for increased traffic. And yes I forgot about that proposed post on “Unafraid of prosperity”. It has been conceived and now it is in gestation. 🙂

  • Hi,

    This is a great article.I am from the Singapore Memory Project and am keen to write a facebook post on this. Could we share the picture of your strait hunting party on our post,please? We will credit and link to your blog post on it.

    Regards,
    iremembersg facebook page

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