Lower Peirce Reservoir Park

Lower Peirce is a small park on the edge of the central catchment with a nine-hundred-metre boardwalk running through mature secondary forest to the water, and the forest here is old enough that the canopy closes overhead and the light goes green. Long-tailed macaques, monitor lizards and squirrels are constant, some trees are more than a century old, and the Raffles' banded langur, endangered in Singapore, is sometimes seen. The reservoir itself is still and usually empty of people, and the whole loop takes about an hour at a slow pace. The reservoir was built in 1910 by damming the upper Kallang River, the second oldest in Singapore, renamed Peirce Reservoir in 1922, and the mature secondary forest around it has had more than a century to close over.

What's there

• The boardwalk - nine hundred metres through closed-canopy secondary forest.
• The reservoir - still water with forest running down to it on all sides.
• The macaques - troops along the boardwalk, habituated and bold.
• The quiet - one of the least trafficked forest walks in Singapore.

When to go

Year round; early morning is coolest and best for wildlife. Afternoon storms close the boardwalk. Weekdays are near empty.

Practical notes

Macaques take food and bags and should not be fed; they are aggressive about it. Mosquitoes are heavy. The boardwalk is slippery when wet.

Nearby

MacRitchie is southwest, and Upper Peirce is north.

Key facts