Reflection of trip to Bukit Timah Nature Reserve (Gracia Lee 1-1)

   Bukit Timah Nature Reserve is a tropical rainforest in Singapore which has an astonishing variety of plants, animals and insects. It is also a water catchment area, which forms part of Singapore's water supply. Before we even started our walk up to the Bukit Timah Summit, we saw many monkeys that were swinging from tree to tree and landing on our pathways.  
   We visited the exhibition area before venturing out and understood more about the tropical rainforest in Singapore. The exhibits inside showed many different things which we could learn a lot from. For a better chance of survival, I learnt that fruits and seeds must move away from the parent plant to reduce competition and to expand the range of species. Many tall emergents and canopy trees in the tropical rainforest used their winged seeds so that those seeds can be carried along considerable distances depending on the velocity of the wind.
   After that, we started walking up to reach the Bukit Timah Summit. Even though our teachers made it seem so easy to walk up as they were chatting while walking at a fast pace, my friends and I found it difficult to walk up the steep pathway and later became quite tired of the walking. However, throughout the entire walk, we experienced nature with our very own eyes though we were distracted sometimes with talking and cracking jokes. We learnt that silence is golden in such a place so as to be able to hear nature and we also learnt more about the natural vegetation in tropical rainforests. We found out that the common insect sound heard is not made by crickets, but by cicadas. We saw the three layers: emergent, canopy and undergrowth. Some really tall and big trees had buttress roots which helped hold their heavy trunks and there were lianas that clinged onto a tree and connected to another one. There were also the epiphytes, which were the ferns. There was a tree, called the Merombong, which had a special trunk and its wood is rarely used but has excellent quality and durability. There was not much sunlight experienced as the emergents created a shade for us and only sometimes, patches of light could be seen.
   After the treacherous walk up, we were shocked to see that we had only climbed a height of 163.63 metres. We sat down to rest and made a sketch of three kinds of leaves. Most of the leaves we saw had a drip tip so as to drain off water. Then, we walked down and played at a playground but went off to look at a water catchment area that was beautiful. When rain falls, it is trapped by the leaves on the trees and the rainwater that falls from the leaves onto the ground are slowly drained to nearby reservoirs.
   I truly enjoyed the trip to the Bukit Timah Nature reserve and I understood more about tropical rainforests in Singapore.