Hey peeps,
Alright, I did promise some out-of-the-usual shelling posts, and so I will. Exams ended like 3 weeks ago so I managed to squeeze in two trips to Pulau Ubin during the marking days... :D Legend has it that 3 animals, a pig, an elephant and a frog, once challenged each other to swim across the Johor Straits. To cut the story short, they all failed terribly... and drowned. eventually, the pig and elephant formed the two main islands of what we now call Pulau Ubin. The frog, despite being a water-borne creature, eventually also died and formed Pulau Sekudu, or Frog Island. (Fyi, Pulau is the Malay term for "Island") So yea... Anyway, Sekudu is out of reach by the public and hence, we only toured the Eastern and Western Island. :) A ride around the entire island, on a bicycle, would take about 6 to 7 hours, which is of course dependent on how many breaks you choose to take. Shelling wise, I would have to apologise. I INTENDED to shell on the first trip, but tragically it rained when we finally reached the Jetty... :( And on the second trip, we had almost no time to shell... :( But anyway, the short 5-minute shelling experience was an eye opener for me... so stay tuned to find out why!
We proceeded westwards... Which is usually unexplored. Here's a little stream to enjoy... You rarely find these on mainland Singapore. No shells here though. :/
And the first river... Lined with numerous mangroves. Did I ever mention that despite being that little red dot on the map, Singapore hosts half of the 51 recognised, true mangrove species in the world! So protect your mangroves S'poreans!!!
Right in the middle of the tidal river... This ecological formation is unique, in the sense that the river is filled only during high tide...
On the top of Ubin Hill... Almost NO ONE was there, as no one was interested in climbing up 100+m... But the view is breath-taking... How often do you see this in Singapore? :D
And to end off the day... a break by this lovely pond... :) Anyway, these photos are just snippets of where we went. We also visited the Bike Park at the far west, facing Punggol and Yio Chu Kang. We TRIED to visit Mamam Beach but it was CLOSED due to coastal erosion... Real sad eh? And to top things off, I had a great fall that left me with 12 scratches on my right leg and 1 week of humiliation from my friends (They gladly assumed that I was engaged in a cat fight... -.-" )
And the Jetty... Low tides like these make me sooooo happy... :3
And if you look closely, you'd find SHRIMPS in this tidal pool! (The spoon probably came from one of the restaurants nearby...)
And a MELONGENA SHELL!!!
Ok, so quickly, these are some of our finds: CHAMELEON NERITE
WAVED NERITE
BUTTERFLY/SURF CLAMS
ONE-TOOTHED TROCHUS
TIGER MOON SHELL
BLACK MUSSEL and DUA TOW
SO there you have it! Have an enjoyable weekend! :D
