P organised a group of friends and colleagues to do the Southern Ridges Walk on Saturday morning. The Southern Ridges Trail is a National Parks-designed network of paved trails and bridges that cross southwestern Singapore. Unlike eg the Dragonback Trail in Hong Kong, the Singapore version is supremely urban with paved concrete paths crossing roads and winding into the jungle and back out again. The entire route from West Coast Park to Harbourfront is about 9km, but P decided to do the 5km trail to make the walk more accessible. There are short hilly stretches that may make you breathe a little harder, but for the most part the trail rates about a 0.5 on a 1-10 scale of difficulty.

You can find a PDF map of the trail here.

The lack of difficulty of the walk was why P got very irritated when nearly half of the group that had previously agreed to come decided to drop out with excuses ranging from ill relatives to lack of sleep. P isn't very fit herself, but does try to exercise regularly, which is more than you can say for many of her female colleagues. Still, how can you improve your fitness if you can't even rouse yourself to try an easy walk?

P began the trail at Alexandra Arch at 9 in the morning. This is an 80m elevated leaf-shaped bridge across Alexandra Road.

View of Alexandra Arch from the Road Bridge Supports Alexandra Arch viewed from stairs to the Bridge
P quite likes the steel rib structure of the bridge which is meant to be modelled after the leaves of the "Mile-a-minute"plant. She wll have to return in the evening to enjoy the light show on the bridge. From Alexandra Arch, P's group went on to Hort Park, one of the more attractive new parks in Singapore. Opened in April of this year, the park comprises 20 themed gardens including a Gold and Silver Garden, a Fantasy Garden, a Roof Garden etc etc. Here is some of what P's group saw in their 40 minute romp around Hort Park. Hort Park Entrance and Water feature Closeup of Flower Landscaped Garden Trellis with Blue Pea Flowers Bamboo Labyrinth Cowardly Lion at Fantasy Garden Scarecrow at Fantasy Garden Field of Blue Flowers

Living Walls Garden

Exiting from Hort Park, P circled back to Alexandra Arch continuing on to the Forest Walk with lots of raised walkways hundreds of metres above the Forest floor. Someone uploaded a video to Youtube which gives quite a good idea what this segment was like.

Forest Walk led out into Telok Blangah Hill Park, which houses the famous Alkaff Mansion, originally built by the Alkaff family (Indonesian traders) in the mid 19th century. The Mansion had fallen into disrepair after WWII, but was restored as a restaurant (and favourite photo haunt of wedding couples) in 1986. Unfortunately the trail P followed did not lead by the Mansion and this section was a pretty boring trudge along the side of various roads, either going downhill or uphill. After the final climb, P's group reached Henderson Waves, the undulating curved steel bridge designed by a partnership between British Architects IJP Corporation and Singapore firm RSP Architects, Planners and Engineers. The decking is made from all-weather Balau wood and "fleshes" out the 274m of the bridge's length very nicely.

Henderson Waves bridge across Henderson Road

Henderson Waves led us into Mount Faber Park, right up to the highest point with the swish restaurant (Jewel Box) and the Cable Car station to Sentosa. From there, it was an easy downhill trot past a number of viewing stations, like the one below, which offered a nice view of the Southern coast.

Halfway down Mount Faber, we hit the Marang Trail, a series of steel and/or wooden bridges and stairs down the rest of Mount Faber to Telok Blangah Road. P spotted quite a few colonial black-and-white bungalows dotting the forested hillside and wondered how the inhabitants ever got to visit the rest of Singapore. P also spotted a rather nice large brown lizard with scales that looked blue and green when viewed from the right angles. P didn't bother with photos here but obviously someone did - below is a photo from singaporeshot.com and there are plenty more on the site.

Telok Blangah Road was about 100m from the Harbourfront MRT station which provided a convenient entrance into the air-conditioned comfort of the Vivocity Mall. P's group finished with a happy brunch at Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, feeling really virtuous! The entire walk took about 2hr and 15minutes, with about 40minutes of that circling Hort Park, so P reckons its a good easy walk for a lazy weekend.