The Night Safari

The idea is simple and slightly odd: most of the interesting animals are nocturnal, so open the park at night and light it as though there were a moon. It sits in forest on the northern edge of the island, next to the zoo and the river park, and the change of register from the city you left an hour ago is complete.

You start on the tram. It is open sided, runs slowly, and takes you through habitats laid out so that the barriers are hard to find: dry ground with Asian elephants standing in the half-light, a stretch of forest where a tapir crosses the road ahead of you, deer, a rhinoceros doing nothing at all with great commitment. The commentary is decent and the pace is right: slow enough to see, quick enough that a five-year-old does not lose interest.

Then you get off and walk. The trails are where it becomes memorable. Flying squirrels go over your head between trees inside a walk-through enclosure. There are civets, slow lorises, mouse deer and fishing cats, all animals that daylight visitors never see awake anywhere. The leopard trail puts a lot less glass between you and the cat than you expect.

Come as it opens. The queues build through the evening, the animals are at their most active early, and finishing before it is truly late matters if there are children in the group. There is food on site and it is fine; a hawker table before you come out is better.

Give it its own evening, with the gardens or Sentosa taking the daylight hours either side. And when it leaves someone in the group wanting the unfenced version, that is a night game drive back home.

Good to know

• Book ahead and arrive for opening. This is the one attraction in Singapore where the queue can eat the evening.
• No flash, anywhere. It is enforced and it is right.
• Mosquito repellent. It is forest, it is warm and it is after dark.
• Rain gear rather than an umbrella on the trails, and the tram carries on regardless.
• Tram commentary runs in more than one language on different departures. We confirm the arrangements with your booking.
• Eat before or after rather than during. The trails are better without a queue for food in the middle of them.