The Jurong Eco-Garden (JEG) is Singapore’s first freshwater swamp forest located within an industrial park. It opened in June this year and provided the much needed lush greenery for those working and/or living in the area to come by for bird-watching, spot wildlife, take a leisurely stroll and just enjoy nature’s own glory.
Those who have been following my blog, you’d probably know I love exploring (new) walking trails and I frequently engage in hikes in various parts of the island together with the husband. Really curious about what an eco-garden was all about, the husband and I made our way to the West to check it out. It was a long journey to get there but it wasn’t too much of a hassle.
From Boon Lay Interchange, take bus 199. Six stops later, alight at Nanyang Avenue bus stop before Lorong Danau. This is the same bus that gets you to NTU. The JEG is located where CleanTech One & Two are, beside the NTU campus.
After getting off the bus, walk to your left hand side (where the bus stop billboard is) and you will see this opening that leads into the CleanTech One building.
Keep to the right hand side of the building and just walk all the way ahead…
…till you see this staircase. Go up the steps, walk straight ahead and you’ll reach the eco-garden.
Spotted the Black and Yellow Millipede (Anoplodesmus saussurii) on the pebbled pavement along the way. It was an assembly of millipedes! They were everywhere! Solo and in groups. We had to be extra careful with our eyes glued to the ground as we walked. Wouldn’t want to kill any by mistake so please be careful too when you’re there!
An excellent way to conserve our precious water resources. This eco-pond forms part of the freshwater swamp that is able to capture 65% of rainwater run-off. This water will then be recycled for other non-potable uses in the park.
The 5-hectare garden is about the size of 7 football fields. We thought it would be quite a big area to walk around but didn’t feel like it was when we were there. The entire walk around the garden including the trail took us probably under 2 hours at a leisurely speed with most time spent on photo-taking.
I was hoping to spot one of these creatures (not the nocturnal bat of course) and I really kept my eyes open at every turn and corner but we just didn’t get to see any 🙁 Maybe we went at the wrong time (late morning). Oh well.
Probably because it hadn’t been raining so the meandering streams were dry. Pity. Otherwise, it would have looked really nice instead of just having rocks and pebbles on grass.
Right at the top is the Summit Lookout which is also the highest point in the park. We didn’t go up there because maintenance works were on-going.
Definitely a good spot for bird-watching. There were quite a number of different species flying around above us, in the trees and some were perched on the edge of the walkway as well.
We spotted bright coloured kois in this pond that looked stagnant. Water didn’t look very clean to me.
An aerial view of the freshwater swamp from the Ficus Lookout point
This is the Thow Kwang Pottery Jungle where you can shop, walk in the dragon kiln and attend their clay workshops!
The Composting Station that features the processes how horticulture waste could be converted into resources.
We definitely saw many different types of butterflies there. Some were just pretty!
We ventured into the walking trail which is just a path between bushes and trees and spotted this purple morning glory (alone) in the middle of nowhere. Just when I was capturing a shot of it, a bee came out 🙂
The trail is a fairly easy route on an all-flat terrain except at the end where there was quite a steep slope to go down and I almost slipped because it was quite hard to gain a foothold on small slippery pebbles.
This trail will only be available till 2019 so go visit before it disappears!
We spotted tons of dragonflies flying around. Couldn’t capture clearly on camera but there were really loads. See those black black spots in the sky? They were the dragonflies.
Spine-tufted Skimmer
Swamp Pavilion
Some weird looking slug
Overall, I thought the eco-garden was quite a nice place to explore. I actually felt like I was back in my primary school days of going on science excursions where I actually made discoveries so it was truly a learning experience. I highly recommend families with children to visit the JEG. There’s nothing better than understanding science and nature through outdoor learning!