Nature Walk to Kent Ridge Park

I was down with a really bad case of fever which lasted 2 weeks followed by a rash outbreak all over. (For that, the better GP in my neighbourhood said it's not likely dengue.) I sort of recovered just in time for a nature walk with Nature Society of Singapore (lobang courtesy of Zengrong the tree hugger)

We started out from Hyderabad Road (not to be confused with the one in India, which had bomb explosions) and moved along into the rather private areas with plenty of those old colonial houses.

The road names sort of gave an illusion that we were not in Singapore anymore...

Unlike Dempsey and Rochester, none of these old colonial houses had been converted to posh restaurants or drinking holes. Or at least I didn't see any. Perhaps it's not viable due to accessibility, or maybe the owners of the houses prefer to keep the place to themselves. Canterbury Road and Berkshire Road would have had a nice ring for high class stuff. I mean the former is like having a piece of New Zealand while the latter would be like a lame homage to Warren Buffett.

On the other side of the winding road, we caught a glimpse of a very important nursery of Singapore. It is the nursery that cultivates seedlings for just about every plant and tree in Singapore, excluding nature reserves and military training grounds. Lots of stuff going on in there, I think. Would be an interesting place to hold a science excursion.

Panning around, we saw quite a bit of development. I stuck between gloating that the people living in those colonial houses are losing their territory and being sad because of the ruthless development. Oh well, I am supposed to be concentrating on the nature walk.

Anyway, still digressing, far away we saw yet another colonial house which came with a pool, patio and deck. I thought it was a one off thing. But as the group carried on, we realized that just about every house had one. It's like everyone in the neighbourhood upgraded through some major upgrading scheme by the government!

One even had a tree house of sorts!

Then these caught my eye...

Moving on, we also saw a few tennis courts and could help but infer that it was an equivalent of a community centre. They are even holding a tennis open!

We then broke off from the track and went through a short cut through the "wilderness", but it was a comfortable walk.

So now we arrived at Kent Ridge Park, a rather picturesque product of National Parks Board. A small park but a nice place with a good running route.

The first pond we saw had plenty of things living in it, particularly koi, perhaps some luohan and a terrapin.

And the main pond made the place look like a miniature version of MacRitchie Reservoir.

Anyway, from the looks of this sign, I thought it was saying, "The fish aren't dumb either, don't waste your bait."

Of course, this didn't mark the end of the walk. There was still some walking to do and things to see, particularly birds. (real birds, ok! Oh well, nevermind...)

It's somewhat tiring just looking at those steps.

The guides led us through a paved trail through the vegetation. It reminded me a little of my NS days, where the route involved going up and down countless ravines.

The trail ended at the start of Kent Ridge Park's canopy walk which had a lovely bird's eye view of the nursery we passed by earlier.

The obligatory Kodak moment...

At the top of Kent Ridge Park was Reflections at Bukit Chandu, a small building which houses a bit of heritage about the place. The rain was coming, but I managed to snap a few pictures of it exterior.

Eventually, we covered about 8 km on foot in about 3 hours. So I was quite pleased with the light exercise I put myself through.

Some of the group adjourned for a meal at a kopitiam while a few of us move on to VivoCity. The girlfriend and I caught 881, which was pretty good for a local film. Corny, obiang, but really entertaining. I think it's probably making many people catch the getai that's happening during this seventh month.

More photos of the trip from Zengrong here.