Well what do Monkey’s and me have in common? Well I’m a cheeky fella and they are just cheeky and mischievous – then again, or is that the other way around?
I decided to visit the (HSBC-Sponsored) Tree Top Walk which is located in MacRitchie Reservoir Park…the park itself is huge, so they have created several walking trails around the Park, which includes the Tree Top Walk. They were as follows (see map for more details):
- Route 1 (Green) – distance: 3km, approx. walking time: 1hr, trail grade: easy
- Route 2 (Purple) – distance: 4.8km, approx. walking time: 2hrs, trail grade: easy
- Route 3 (blue) – distance: 10.3km, approx. walking time: 4-5hrs, trail grade: moderate-to-difficult
- Route 4 (yellow) – distance: 11km, approx. walking time: 4hrs, trail grade: moderate
- Route 5 (pink) – distance: 9.5km, approx. walking time: 4-5hrs, trail grade: difficult
- Route 6 (orange) – distance: 7km, approx. walking time: 3-4hrs, trail grade: moderate-to-difficult
I ventured on the Orange trail from the Venus Drive Car Park (just off Upper Thomson Road), where I arrived by Taxi, and then walked a loop, until I came to the Tree Top Walk. This was the main part of the experience – to venture a journey of about 250 metres long in the forest canopies, all the way up there – to a point where I was 25 metres above the ground! Nice. So if you are afraid of heights, this is not really your cup of tea 🙂
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- Turn around you cheeky fella…
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- Oi, this way… I’m not that scary you know!
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- The MacRitchie Trails…in addition to the Tree Top walk. They ranged from 3km (about an hr) to 11km (about 4hrs). Ergh which one do you think I chose? 🙂
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- The only way to get a front-on photo – is when they are not aware on you! Ha!
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- Look a bit mischievous to me!
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- A luvly walk in the forest.
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- 2.9km in – nice! Then again, I’ve got another 0.3km to the start of the tree top walk, and then a walk around in a loop to return here and back to the Venus Car Park…nice!
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- Canopies…I thought canopies is what you what you eat at the start of those Corporate functions? 🙂 Ah you are right that’s Canapés!
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- The Tree Top Walk was officially opened on 5th November 2004.
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- Looking young and innocent!
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- They always seem quite inquisitive about what’s happening around them…
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- This one looked quite aggresive! Just like a bouncer at the door. I can just imagine him saying ‘tickets please’ 🙂
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- The length of the walkway is 250m, and it’s highest point is 25m up 🙂 So you better not be afraid of heights!
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- The monkey’s seemed to jumped up from the canopies and walk around like it’s their house! We seem to be the guests! Ha!
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- Amazing view from the top!
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- I was in awe from being this high up in the forest – fantastic views!
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- Looking down about half-way – yup it’s quite high-up!
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- Even the individual trees looked fantastic!
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- …a cheeky monkey?
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- That’s a nice long walk – nice and warm up there!
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- Looking relaxed (though I was sweating bucket loads!)
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- Intricate branches
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- Even dead trunks looked interesting…
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- The windy journey…
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- Looking up at the skies…
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- Another cheeky one coming down to say Hi!
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- Catepillar…and the relevance?
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- Well there was this sign literally by it! Ha! Puurfect placement!
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- Wow – tree-roots above the surface?
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- Almost there 🙂
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- Can you spot him (or her?)?
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- What goes up, must come down…
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- Dead stuff can be good – well from a nature perspective!
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- Fascinating tree trunk
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- Well it was a distinguish feature of this particular tree!
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- Water in the forests…
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- There were small insects and fish in the waters
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- Now I’ve completed the Tree-Top walk, decision time…do I go the long way around, or finished the shorter loop back to where I started? 🙂
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- Looking for food…
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- Keeping watch…
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- Wow what a big leaf!
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- Small stream or big leaf?
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- At least there was some colour in green and brown forest 🙂
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- What a complicated tree!
I absolutely loved it up there – you felt so free and the views were amazing. What I didn’t do was to do a 360° panaromic photo of the whole landscape from up there. Doh, but take my word for it when I say it was truly amazing!
There were also a lot of cheeky monkey’s up there – and I was joining them for a couple of hours. Talking about time, I was meant to have arrived slightly earlier – say around 9.30am, because I knew it would get really hot and humid up there, but I left late whilst buying supplies of water for the trip, and actually arrived more like 10.30am. It took me about 3 hrs to walk around, I wasn’t really in a hurry, so walked casually round the trail. I think I finished around 1.30pm in the end. Luckily I bought some snacks (Ritz Crackers – yum!) with me to keep my energy levels up, though I did have to be careful that those pesky monkey’s didn’t see my private stash of food, else they would probably attack me for them! Ha!