One of my favorite things I did in Singapore was this absolutely exhausting but totally worth-it hike. The MacRitchie Reservoir Nature Trail is an 11-kilometer hike around the beautiful nature preserve and reservoir. You can enjoy a beautiful park, watch kayakers in the water, explore a treetop walk, and hopefully see monkeys!
How hard is the hike around MacRitchie Reservoir?
I will say, the hike was pretty strenuous. We also missed a turn at the end and added about half of a mile to our already laborious walk. It was long, and I clocked 45 flights of stairs. This is with the Treetop Walk included, though, and it is possible to complete the reservoir loop without this added mileage. We saw the most monkeys on the way to the treetop walk entrance, but you could always go look for monkeys and then turn back around.
Long-tailed macaques in MacRitchie Reservoir
The best part of the hike was obviously the monkeys. It would have been harder to convince me to commit to an eight-mile hike without a promise of wildlife. It wasn't guaranteed we would see them, of course, but we lucked out.
These monkeys were hanging out near the restrooms where we stopped to fill up our waters. Then there were a couple more walking across a roof back at the start/end of the hike. If you look closely (in the first two below), you can see a very tiny baby monkey clinging to its mother's stomach. Seems like quite a workout, but by the time I finished the hike, I empathized with being tired of walking.
MacRitchie Reservoir's Treetop Walk
The treetop walk only goes one way since you can see the bridge is super narrow. (If you plan on including it in your hike, you'll need to go counterclockwise around the park.) It was cool getting to walk in the canopy of trees, and there was a great view of the reservoir looking off to the right side of the bridge.
The rest of the park had some beautiful landscaping, lots of benches, a cool pagoda, and a lot of walking paths around and across the water. MacRitchie Reservoir is clearly a popular spot for both locals and tourists to get some exercise and enjoy nature. There was hiking through forest, then the treetops, then a boardwalk along the water. What more could you want? Even though it was a tough workout, it was definitely worth it.
