Labrador Nature Park

Finally, finally, found 2 of my frens who were also nature enthusiasts, Lynn and Huijia from the same Bio cohort, to go explore Labrador Park with me...hehe.

Labrador park is the last inter-tidal rocky shore in Singapore, and so I MUST SEE IT this time, since I'm so free now and will not have such free time when training starts. Heard many praises abt this place, heard that many schools have went to visit it before, and me, a Biologist, have not seen it before...haha...so hmm...at least i'm here at last...haha. Low tide was at 1020 today, wakeable time, if u wanna go you have to plan it during the lowest tide 0.1m because any later the tide rises really fast. Use tanjong pagar or bukom tide tables, and print out the map of labrador to help you navigate ard...although having someone who's been there before will be more valuable than anything...hehe...this time lucky we have Lynn, if Peiya and Linghan was here I would have pulled them along too, they would be the experienced ones..heh heh..=)

Lynn, Huijia and I met at Harbour front and took a cab in because it was faster. There are bus services in too but it may be a bit inconvenient to walk in. Can take bus 10, 30, 57, 97, 100, 143, 166 from vivo city side, but hor...weekends and public holidays go might be better (although I dun like as there are more ppl) because got this bus 408 that goes straight into labrador park carpark A,B. if you take cab maybe can tell uncle Labrador Villa road, alexandra road/pasir panjang road...if uncle dunno u may have to point him the way...$4 bucks to go in...cheap cheap.

When I reached Labrador park, I was happy because I finally got here. We saw many small critters, but did not find the more notorious creatures like octopus, catfish, hairy crab, moon crab, seahorse! We can only find these with an experienced eye and a very low tide...haha. But we still got our fair share of stuff, like we saw many many hermit crabs, they're so cute, hiding when we lift them up, exposing only their resting tiny claws at the mouth of the shell, and scurry abt feeding when we put them back to the sea floor. They inhabit a variety of shells, all shapes and sizes, but of cos dun have one that occupied a coke can (-_-lll). We also saw many gobies, small crabs, shrimps (snapping shrimp?), cones...etc. A little disappointing but I enjoyed the girls' company...haha. We can always go again another time, when the low tide is at a better timing..hehe..found some nature kakis already. Later when the tide rose, we headed up on top of this small hill, where there is breath-taking view of the sea below. The breeze was so cooling and we chatted for a while abt how much we missed the Tioman field studies, and how happy we are to still keep in contact with each other. I'm really blessed to know Lynn and Huijia, and to have a small but close Bio cohort. We were even planning to have seafood dinner some day after convocation...looking forward to it! Thanx girls for accompanying me to Labrador! hehe..




Spider that was as big as my outstretched palm!





It was a little hard to take nice pictures under the strong sunlight, and without an underwater casing. The pros usually use the diffuser to prevent water reflections. Nice pictures of labrador 'residents' on this nature blog http://habitatnews.nus.edu.sg/news/labrador/blog/

Next place I wanna go, HSBC Tree top walk at Macritchie. Any takers? When Chek Jawa opens again, I'll also head for it straight, this one I know Jiahui wants to go..heh heh. I also want to go for a guided reef walk, but its always so early i know i can't wake up in time. haha...