Singapore Southern Ridges

Despite being small, full of high rise residential buildings or office blocks, actually there are still so much more that Singapore offers. Me and my friend were doing some adventure to explore this less traveled part of Singapore. This weekend we went to explore the southern part of Singapore that famously known as Southern Ridges. I will tell you the detailed journey in this post.

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The beginning of our journey. HortPark at Alexandra Road.
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HortPark is dubbed as “The Gardening Hub”

On Saturday, we started from Hort Park that is located on Alexandra Road. Hort Park is dubbed “The Gardening Hub”, due to many gardening workshops being offered there. There are two directions that you can explore. One is to the south, to the Alexandra Arch and the forest walk, and the other is towards Kent Ridge Park. We chose the second one, so we spent around half an hour exploring the Hort Park itself to the end, where there was a trail leading to Kent Ridge Park.

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End of HortPark, on the Kent Ridge end
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The beginning of the trail leading to Kent Ridge park!

The trail that connects Hort Park and Kent Ridge Park was very quiet, and the scenery was great. It was an uphill hike though if you come from Hort Park, so be ready for it. At the end of the trail you can see the Canopy Walk easily, which was a wooden bridge spanning above the top of the trees. This Canopy Walk is very cool and you can get a wide view of some flower planting facilities below. At the end of the bridge there was a trail, if you continue all the way I believe you can reach NUS, although we didn’t pursue that path.

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Uphill climb. Should go from the other direction…
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This is the Canopy Walk at Kent Ridge Park.
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View from Canopy Walk. Is this Singapore? (the HDB at the far background ruins the scenery, lol)

Kent Ridge Park is quite big, and even quieter than Hort Park. There was a lookout point somewhere there, where you can view the islands on the south of Singapore, which was really cool. The park navigation was a little bit confusing, so we ended up in the wrong exit, a path towards DSO carpark at Science Park Drive. It was good to see main roads again, yes, however there was this empty feeling inside looking at office clusters on weekend!

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A quiet Kent Ridge Park. More like a forest…
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The lookout point at Kent Ridge Park. Amazing!

We walked to Kent Ridge MRT nearby, and took a ride to Haw Par Villa MRT. The good thing about being a tourist in your own country is that you are proficient with the public transport systems! Our next destination was Haw Par Villa. This is some kind of park, but not your ordinary one. It is more like a cultural-themed park. The theme of the Haw Par Villa is about the Chinese culture of Gods. Things like 10 stages of Hell, the Gods of wealth and prosperity, etc. Here’s a couple of photos from Haw Par Villa.

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Haw Par Villa entrance.
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The 10 Courts of Hell really captured our attention.
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Fu Lu Shou (Gods of Happiness, Prosperity, and Longevity)
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A colorful dragon

Around Haw Par Villa there wasn’t any visible affordable eating place, so we decided to just reroute to Harbourfront MRT and ate lunch at VivoCity. An hour in an air conditioning place after walking in the open air for almost 3 hours was such a bliss. We took circle line MRT to Labrador Park and we walked to Labrador Nature Reserve. The place was a little bit hidden from the main road, so you have to walk around 15 minutes in, which was quite unconvincing at first since you can’t see any other people/cars/buses going in. We always doubted “Is this the correct way?” but to our relief we finally really reached the place!

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Finally reached Labrador after 15 minutes walk full of doubt

Labrador Nature Reserve was divided into 2 parts, the Nature Reserve on the right (that should be the west) and the Park on the left. It is situated just before the sea, so the view and the wind overlooking the sea was breathtakingly AWESOME. Since the place was remote, it was not as crowded as Sentosa or East Coast Park, making it a good place to have a family picnic or some sort. Unfortunately we didn’t have the time to explore the whole place, so we decided to check out the Park, because we saw a long bridge/walkway above the seashore far away, and it looked interesting. So off we go!

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This is the Labrador Park section.
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A viewing platform along the bay.
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The building name is ‘Reflections’. You can see the curious walkway beneath. We decided to check it out…

The walkway began at the end of the park, and we only learned that we were walking along the Keppel Bay. The walkway was overlooking the Keppel Bay on our right and the highest, most luxurious residential place in Singapore on our left. How luxurious is luxurious? You may think that if you own a condominium unit and have your own car in Singapore, you are already considered rich. However this place (Reflection and Carribean) is on another level. Imagine having a yacht parked in front of your condominium. That is the level. There is no front yard, but a front bay full of parked yachts, like in Monaco. There were canals too as in Venice, separating the blocks. You want to experience Venice and Monaco but have no money to do so? Just walk along the Keppel Bay walkway! 😀 The walkway turned out to be ending just beside VivoCIty and that concludes our Saturday.

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Start of Keppel Bay Walkway.
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Reflections. Quite a fitting name, because you immediately reflected on how poor you are… LOL
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How poor? Well, someone out there had private yachts parked in front of their house… (is this even Monaco?)
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Is this Venice? Very nice.

Sunday

On Sunday, we started from Hort Park again, but we went the opposite direction. You will definitely not miss the Alexandra Arch, a huge overhead bridge across the Alexandra Road. This marked the start of Alexandra Garden Trail. It continued to a long section named Forest Walk, which was literally true, because you really walked through the top of the forest. Some part of the walkway was quite high above the ground. It was a long walk but certainly a very interesting one!

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You won’t miss the Alexandra Arch…
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On top of Alexandra Arch
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Start of the Forest Walk

The end of the Forest Walk is the entrance of Telok Blangah Hill Park. On this park we took a climb to the Hilltop Terrace, the highest point of the park where you can see the southern sea of Singapore. The park itself was quite big and for some reason we can’t find adequate maps/directions, so we have to figure out our ways ourselves. Fortunately the way to Mount Faber/Henderson Waves was quite clearly marked so we have no difficulties in going towards that direction.

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Henderson Waves is the highest pedestrian bridge in Singapore, I think it is around 30m above the Henderson Road below. The bridge is made from wood and has a wavy structure (hence the name), and it was pretty cool bridge, if you dont have a fear of heights!

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This bridge is 77 metres above sea level.
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Hey, it’s Reflections again!
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Managed to take a shot where all the people there was out of sight!

Mount Faber, as the name suggests, is located quite high above the ground. It is another beautiful park, where there are lots of high trees as well as restaurants, wedding places etc. Mount Faber also is the first stop of Singapore’s own cable car, that goes all the way to Sentosa. I didn’t have a lot of photos here, since when we arrived there was a freak rain that lasted for only 10 minutes, but enough to keep my phone in my pocket.

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Mount Faber Park. Nice flower canopy btw. It was just raining before, so I have not much photos here…

The last section was to find the Marang Trail, that connected Mount Faber and VivoCity (Harbourfront MRT to be exact). That was quite easily done since the road signs were clear. I thought Marang Trail was a totally nature trail, with soil and not pavements, but turns out most of the trail are paved already, which makes it easy to navigate. Furthermore going towards the Harbourfront was downhill, so walking through the trail was a breeze. The trail itself was not that long, maybe 10-15 minutes walk, and you’ll be amazed that a minute ago you were still walking along big canopies of trees, and the next minute you were out in the hustling bustling of Singapore!

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Beginning of Marang Trail downhill (yay!)
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End of Marang Trail. Back to civilization!

This concludes our weekend. My afterthoughts of this walking trip is, actually you can do my two-day journey in a single full day.

Recommended route for this Southern Ridges in a single day:

1. Start early in the morning (around 9am) at Kent Ridge Park, explore there, ride the Canopy Walk and find your way towards Hort Park.

2. Explore Hort Park and go outside to Alexandra Arch.

3. Follow the Forest Walk, all the way to Hilltop Terrace at Telok Belangah Hill, and all the way to Mount Faber through Henderson Waves, ending in Marang Trail.

4. By that time it should be close to lunch time. Take your lunch in VivoCity/Harbourfront MRT. Seah Imm Food Center outside Harbourfront MRT is awesome.

5. From Harbourfront MRT, find the Carribean apartments, and walk along the Keppel Bay until you reach Labrador Park.

6. Spend your afternoon in a breezy Labrador Nature Reserve, maybe have a picnic there or something.

I think that’s the best route that I can plan of. And I have planned so that you have as much downhill walks as possible (Kent Ridge to Hort Park is downhill, Marang Trail is also downhill). I do omit the Haw Par Villa though, since I think the position of HPV is a little bit far out. If you do try this route, tell me how it goes! 😀

Until next post then…

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