Rifle Range Nature Park

A hole dug for stone, a lookout built for a view, and two ways up: choose at the bottom.

This is the Bukit Timah view for people who don't fancy Bukit Timah. Rifle Range Nature Park gives you a dramatic landscape for very little effort: prams and wheelchairs get a flat boardwalk to the water, the stubborn get a steep climb to a lookout, and birders get a hide. The compromise is choosing your route before you start, because one of the two ways up is not for small children or older knees. Next step: a dry morning, proper shoes, Beauty World MRT.

The reason to come is the hole in the middle. The old Sin Seng Quarry, described as the deepest in Singapore, stopped working in 1998 and is now the Quarry Wetland: granite cliffs dropping into still green water. The park opened in November 2022 on 66 hectares beside Bukit Timah Nature Reserve, partly to take pressure off the reserve, and NParks bills it as Singapore's first net positive energy nature park, its solar panels producing more power than the site uses. Signs along the Rambai Boardwalk cover the rest of the backstory, including the site's past as the old Singapore Gun Club, which explains the name better than anything to do with the army.

Pick your difficulty

The easy setting is the 411-metre Gliders Boardwalk, barrier-free and pram-friendly, from the visitor pavilion to the wetland. Look up on the way: the rope bridges and poles strung between the trees are crossings for long-tailed macaques and colugos. The 535-metre Rambai Boardwalk is the other gentle option, an accessible treetop walk in from Beauty World. Children aged five to twelve have the Forest Exploration Trail, a short play route of log courses, pebble paths and boulders, which is a good bribe for the walk back.

The hard setting is the Colugo Trail, 582 metres that NParks marks as steep, up to the Colugo Deck, a lookout 31 metres above the quarry shaped like a colugo in flight. There are two ways up. The stair route climbs gradually; the shorter one is a scramble over big stone steps that we would not put a young child or a grandparent on. Decide at the bottom, not halfway. The deck is small, so on a weekend morning plan to take your turn at the rail.

Sit still at the hide

The best part is the slowest. The Waterhen Hide looks out over the wetland without you being seen, and yellow bitterns, white-breasted waterhens and up to five kingfisher species have been recorded around the water. Nothing turns up on schedule, so bring water, keep your voice down and give it longer than feels reasonable.

For a fuller day, the rustic Banyan and Gaharu trails start at the Gaharu Entrance on Jalan Kampong Chantek and go into dense forest; the Banyan Trail passes one of Singapore's few natural freshwater streams. The park also links to the Rail Corridor and Bukit Timah Nature Reserve if your legs are feeling ambitious.

Our order of play: boardwalk to the wetland, deck for the view, then the hide until the birds or your patience give out. Leave the forest if the weather turns, as NParks asks.

Good to know Park hours are 7am–7pm; check the NParks page for maps and notices before you go. From Beauty World MRT take Exit A, go up to Level 4 of Beauty World Centre and over the bridge. There is a small car park at the visitor pavilion. Free NParks guided walks need advance registration. Leave forested areas in bad weather.

More wild Singapore that isn't MacRitchie: our pick of nature beyond the usual.

Rifle Range Nature Park | 126 Rifle Range Road | Nearest MRT: Beauty World