Wildlife

And I’m not referring to my children…

Singapore is a tropical rain forest. It’s easy to forget that from our condo in the heart of the city, but even here, we’re reminded of this fact (see cockatoo sighting in the last post). As someone who considers herself an “outdoorsy” person, I am terrified of “critters”. One of the reasons I was keen on living high in a condo is Singapore has “critters” that are things of my nightmares. Thankfully, we have not seen any snakes, YET, but we have seen our fair share of wildlife.

A few days ago, I took the kids to the Botanic Gardens. There we saw our first clouded monitor. Liam saw it first, and let out a scream that is indescribable.

What is a clouded monitor you ask?

I’m assuming it’s related to an iguana. They’re fairly good sized, harmless but freaky to see especially since they blend in so well. Ryan saw one today at the treetop walk (more on this later) and screamed “it’s larger than Avery!

We think we saw it’s relative, the larger and definitely scarier water monitor from afar, swimming in a pond at gardens by the bay but we cannot confirm despite Ella having us try to track it down in the woods 😳

The other night at dinner in Robertson Quay along the Singapore river, I felt what I thought was a bug on my arm. Oh no, it was a gecko. Screaming ensued.

Today was the ultimate test of my “critter” fortitude. We took a hike at the Macritchie reservoir to the treetop walk. This was super sweaty, exhausting and beautiful. The treetop walk is a suspension bridge that was built through the canopy of the jungle. It’s about a 3k hike into the jungle to get there. Needless to say, there was a LOT of whining from all 5 of us. The point of this forced march was to see Macaque monkeys. Moving here, we promised the kids monkeys and we had yet to see any. Unfortunately, for the first 2/3 of the hike, we saw nothing. We were crabby, hot and disappointed.

Here’s a few pics:

Note, no Ella in the last pic. She decided she was mad at us and was running ahead.

Finally, on the way down from the treetop walk we hit monkey jackpot.

We also saw two of these guys:

No words. Around this time Liam and Ryan also informed me that some snakes can “fly” through the air, “jumping” tree to tree. Deep breaths.

We saw many more monkeys on the hike out which greatly improved all our moods.

Not sure what future wildlife we are in store for but our first week was pretty eventful!