Sungei Buloh

Sunday afternoon we decided to visit the Sungei Buloh Reserve to do the mangrove boardwalk. This is a boardwalk that takes you out into the mangroves where you can view the plants and animals that thrive in this ecosystem. The first walk we did was a short 30 minute walk at about 5 feet above the mud flats of the mangroves (the tide was out.) We saw birds, crabs, mudskippers (see below), and monitor lizards.

Ready to start our tour of the mangroves!

This is what the mangroves look like when the tide it out. A lot of mud!

If you look really close at the middle of the little puddle you will see a Giant Mudskipper. These are fish that can crawl around on land! They use their front two fins to move around and were fascinating to watch.

If you click on this picture and enlarge it you can see a crab with red claws. There were literally hundreds of these all over in the mud!

Look at the huge tree to the back of the picture.

There was an option for an hour to two hour long hike. At the beginning of that trail we saw this sign! We didn't stay long on this trail as the kids were getting tired and we were a little worried about Ethan off-roading and becoming croc food so we turned back. We saw lots of monitor lizards though so it was worth the effort.

There were monitor lizards all over the place at the reserve. Kaitlyn told me, "Look, Mom. One got out!" She wasn't too thrilled when I informed her that this was the "wild" and that these weren't caged! The picture doesn't do the size justice - Ethan could have easily sat on its back and taken a ride. They were a good 5 feet in length.

After a long afternoon we decided to take a bus back home. The 295 would take us all the way to Causeway Point where we decided to have supper at Burger King. From there it is a short 15 minute walk home.

While we were waiting at the bus stop Ethan was playing around with Kaitlyn's hat from San Diego. Right as the bus pulled up he threw it over a railing and down into a ravine. Kaitlyn was devastated and Ryan started to climb up and over after it but I was afraid we'd miss the bus. It only came every 30 minutes and there wasn't much shade where we were sitting. I felt bad for her so we've promised her a new one. Here is one last picture of the hat!!

On our way home from supper we walked through an HDB compound and let the kids play at the park there for a few minutes.

After playing we headed home. Ryan and I walked on a sidewalk while the three kids went up a short little hill and walked in the grass. When they came down from there we noticed Ethan was missing one of his shoes. We all looked for awhile for it but it was almost dark and the shoe was brown. I sent Lovel back in the morning and she couldn't find it either. Ryan and I went back one more time Monday evening to look and right as we were giving up Ryan noticed it tucked away by a tree root.