As usual, we took the boat from Changi Jetty to reach Pulau Ubin. During the boat ride, we got to witness the sun rising over the sea. It was partly cloudy that day, so the clouds had helped to block out some of the sunlight while we did our work. BLESS.
We arrived on Pulau Ubin at around 7.30 am that day.
As we crossed from the jetty to the main island, we spotted trash from the previous trip which have not been cleared, and it appears that more was added to the "collection". It was not a pleasant sight.
We spotted some professional mountain bikers that day and were amazed by the size of their wheels. Its not a common sight to see real mountain bikes after all.
One of the uncles running a van shuttle service recognized some of us in the group from the previous trip and greeted us. He then offered for us to take his van to Chek Jawa. Upon reaching the entrance, as we were about to make payment for the trip, the uncle kindly told us that we could pay for both trips together upon our return instead.
Upon reaching Chek Jawa, we wasted no time and immediately headed for the rocky shoreline hoping to catch the low tide.
On the way to the shore, we saw a lot of litter by the paths.
As we were heading down the rocks to the shoreline, Megan randomly got down on one knee and acted as if she was proposing to Kai Xin. Not sure if we were there to film a drama or collect data for WCB.
The tide level on that day was 0.4m.
We were lucky enough to find some really interesting creatures this time. As we flipped over rocks, we found some crabs making their home there. (Along with some slimy thing which we aren't sure what it was)
Then Kai Xin saw this sea anemone near the shoreline and kept exclaiming how 'disgusting' it was occasionally poking it with the stick she held on to. (Poor anemone :<)
Of course being civilized people, we helped the crabs rebuild their homes after we were done collecting the data and pictures we needed for the project.
We then ventured further in away from where we entered to find some interesting shells and sea fossils. And more "disgusting anemones", as quoted from Kai Xin.
To our dismay, we saw the tide was rising quite quickly. We were then in a dilemma of whether to take the risk to make the dangerous venture further in or head back to safety of the boardwalks. Being the kiasu Singaporeans we are, we decided to head back to the boardwalks.
On our way back, we saw this group led by a tour guide climb up a really steep rocky path and decided to monkey see monkey do. First, we sent Ryan up then the rest of us followed. It was a horrifying experience but we all managed to get up unscathed with Ryan's help.
We made our way down the boardwalks. Phyllis then spotted a flight of stairs from high above which led down to the rocky shore more conveniently than what we've walked through. *SIGH* We were oh so very sad, but life goes on.
We soon arrived at the pit stop where we took a short break and decided to take a group together.
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| Yay team WCB |
We then continued our way down the boardwalks and somewhere in the distance we spotted a stork.
Then suddenly one of us exclaimed, "OMG A LIZARD!" Which the rest of us immediately turned to look and indeed, there was this huge ass monitor lizard not far from where we were.
We even got to witness the monitor lizard catch and feed on what we assumed was a fish. It was really cool.
“Monitor Lizard: Identifiable through their lizard-like features and it loves to feed on fish."
We saw a few more crabs as we continued down the boardwalk, we got to witness some action with the crabs. Two crabs were fighting with each other, probably over territorial disputes.
“Fiddler Crabs: The crab's smaller claw picks up a chunk of sediment from the ground and brings it to the mouth where it extracts the organic material."
We also spotted a super cute looking Magpie Robin along the boardwalks.
We soon decided that we had enough data collected and not to mention, the weather was getting hot AF. So we decided to head back. On the way back we saw several more interesting things. Ah the beauty of biodiversity!
At the entrance while waiting for the uncle to come back and pick us up, we saw what we highly anticipated. WILD BOARS!! ❤ The wild boars were rummaging through belongings attached to the bikes which were parked there.
We also saw the Korean Uni-cycling Association arrive at the entrance of Chek Jawa. We were amazed at how they were able to unicycle on such rough terrain when even normal cycling was a real struggle, (Not to mention someone got injured on our first trip *ahem ahem*)
Not too long after, the uncle arrived to pick us up. He told us to hurry up the van, in fear that the wild boars would rush up the van. The uncle told us that he would regularly bring leftover food from the village to the wild boars. So the wild boars were aware that the uncle had food and may have attempted to get up the van.
After driving off for a short distance, the uncle stopped his van and emptied out a bag of cakes for the wild boars. The wild boars immediately ran over and gobbled down all the cakes in no time. The uncle then got off the van for a bit, and demonstrated how he was able to tame the boars. One of the baby boars obediently laid itself on the floor when the uncle patted it.
When he got back in the van, he told us how he is known as the "King of boars" among locals there. He also joked that he's a "教授" (Jiao shou, Teacher) for the "野兽" (Ye shou, Wild animals). Chinese pun intended if you didn't get it (授 and 兽 are pronounced the same way though they have entirely different meanings).
He gave us a mini tour around the island on our way back to the main port. He stopped by this huge river which he let us take some pictures before driving off.
In no time at all, we soon arrived back at the main port of Pulau Ubin and we were ready to set back off to Singapore.
So we decided to end our final trip with a trip to the 'Oh-so-amazing' Waffle store, which Phyllis and Si Ting were so excited about.
