Families enjoying Chek Jawa Boardwalk

We had a good turnout at our monthly boardwalk trip in June. There were about 50 visitors, mostly families with children, a few groups of friends, and even some visitors from the USA.

Here is a fabulous photo of the Sng family on the boardwalk. They were wonderful visitors who asked lots of good questions, showing great interest in the animals and plants that we saw. And Grandpa Sng regaled us with his own stories of how he used to eat salted mangrove crabs with 'teochew muay' in his younger days. Unfortunately, this tradition of eating pickled mangrove crabs has stopped in the last 40-50 years, probably due to widespread loss of mangrove habitats and hence less access to large, economically viable supplies of these crabs.

Here is a photo of Grandpa Sng and the small durian that he found under the tall durian tree closest to the CJ Information Kiosk. Like a true expert, he gave it a shake and a sniff, and declared that there was little flesh in the durian.

The Crabs were too busy guiding and hence had no photo to show of the animals that we encountered. We will just have to rely on the drawings done by the visitors as a record of what we saw that day.

Enjoy the drawings!

The kids clearly enjoyed seeing the giant mudskippers and crabs in the back mangroves.

Almost without fail, our visitors would tell us that Chek Jawa is just too wonderful to be neglected or to be bull-dozed in pursuit of urban development. Let's hope Chek Jawa gets an official nature reserve status. It is a place that should be left for future generations to enjoy. It will be a huge loss to our natural heritage if Chek Jawa becomes yet another beach-front property.

Written by one of the visitors: "Chek Jawa is a wonderful escape from the urban landscape and its conservation is excellent (so far). This is my first visit here and I look forward to visiting it during the birds mass migrations. It would really be a loss for Singaporeans if all that is left of this place are photos and fossils."

A fun group effort by Alice and her friends.

 Says Marsha from the USA.

A few words of encouragement penned by Diana from Michigan. Thank you for including us in your itinerary :-)

Finally, thanks go to LK, PY, Daniel and Anuj for guiding! Without you guys, we would not have managed to pull this trip off. Well done!