First NHC Guided Walk at Chek Jawa Boardwalk

Yesterday, the Naked Hermit Crabs had our very first guided walk at the Chek Jawa Board Walk! We had 3 groups of participants from NIE and 2 groups of teachers and their family members from the Singapore Chinese Girls School.

It was raining rather heavily early in the morning, but fortunately it more or less stopped when we were about to start our walk :)



We waited for our participants at the Chek Jawa Information Kiosk just outside the visitor centre. The participants from SCGS soon arrived, and here's Ria giving them a good briefing before we start the walk. She took one group, while LK and Kaifen took another.



The participants from NIE also arrived in a while. They were divided into 3 groups, and were led by Alyce & Chay Hoon, Marcus & Sijie, and July, Peihao & me.



We started off with the coastal boardwalk first, and to reach it it, we have to cut through part of the coastal hill forest. The forest is a very important component of Chek Jawa, as it contribute food to the plants and animals that live in the surrounding water in the form of dead leaves, animal waste etc.



The entire boardwalk is about 1.1km long, and the coastal section is about 600m. The boardwalk was actually made from made from concrete and fibre glass, although they look just like wood! The mold used to make the boardwalk was made based on real wooden planks.



The walk also brought us to the floating pontoon, which goes up and down with the tide.



At the mangrove section, you could get really close nature - so close that you can even touch the trees!



Do you know that the young of many seafood that we eat spent part of their lives between the safe roots of mangrove trees? Mangroves also protect the inland from strong winds and destructive waves, like tsunami.



And nearby, a monitor lizard was lazing around.



During this walk, we also saw a species of fiddler crab which we have not seen before!



And near the Jejawi tower, we had a pleasant surprise - there was a long-tailed macaque feeding on the figs of the jewawi tree that gave the tower its name! As there were no irresponsible members of the public feeding the monkeys on Ubin, they haven't lost the ability to find food on their own, and thus do not harass the visitors.

On top of the tower, we took the opportunity to take a few group photos.



Here's the Vinegar cum Thunder Crab group from NIE.



Here are the fiddler crabs...



and the Swimming Crabs...



And here's Siew Joo and our new friends from SCGS! Thanks to Caruna who shared the photo with us.



The walk ended at House No. 1, aka the Chek Jawa Visitor Centre, where our visitors took time to write (and draw) in our guestbook.

And here's what we got from them!













Thanks to all our visitors for sharing their thoughts!

It was certainly a very enjoyable walk for both the guides and the visitors! Thanks to the guides who helped out in the walk - Alyce, Chay Hoon (who also helped to draw the cartoon), LK, Kaifen, Marcus, Sijie, July, Ria and Pei Hao (who also help with taking the photos).

Check out the photos taken by Peihao at http://phraeb.zenfolio.com/p869807215/

And more about the walk on July's discovery blog and the NIE green club blog