Bukit Batok Nature Park, Singapore

Tues, Sep 22, 2009

For someone who considers taking a shower exercise, going to the nature park two days in a row must surely be a record of sorts. Walked about 5km in my sandals on Sunday along the Dairy Farm Trail (click here for that blog) and yesterday trekked the Bukit Batok Nature Park in my flip-flop slippers.

Had purposely worn my sandals and slippers, because in these footgear you are forced to walk slowly. In turn, this will give you more time to really appreciate the surroundings. Even made it all the way up to the top of Bukit Batok. Ha ha, had wanted to say 'summit' but it being only 120 metres high, summit sounds so exaggerated.

Bukit Batok Nature Park is just a stone's throw from my home, and yet it would have been the 2nd or 3rd time only that I've been there. The last time I went, my son Jason was about 3 or 4 years old. He's now in his early twenties. Talk about time flying by!

The park was reclaimed and revamped from a dis-used granite quarry by NParks Singapore around 1988 onwards. They've done a magnificent job!

It might interest you to know that I had actually been to the quarry just after it had ceased operations sometime in the early 1980s. I had a job testing new Mercedes cars and one of the test routes took us to the abandoned quarry to test the car for rattle.

Of course, we made plenty of stops at the quarry pond for breaks. The bare granite cliff face was already an awesome sight at that time. Today, vegetation is starting to cover the magnificent cliff.

This is a video I made on my walk yesterday of the Bukit Batok Nature Park. Hope you like it.

Creepy walkabout

Fort Siloso, Sentosa

Fort Siloso gives me the creeps. It may appeal to war history buffs, gun buffs or military types but for people like me who just happened to stray inside out of curiosity, the place is really creepy, more so 'cos I was alone.

It's a war museum relating to the capitulation of the British in Singapore and the occupancy by the Japanese during WWII. Built around the former British Army gun fort at the western end of Sentosa, Fort Siloso is the only restored fort left in Singapore. Albeit, the restoration was quite nicely done but it looks more like a park than a fort now. Too much vegetation.

Remembering that the place used to be called Blakang Mati (death behind you), and knowing that soldiers fought and died there, and with lots of old pictures showing you macabre scenes of the war, the whole atmosphere is really morbid.

It gets worst when you descend into the tunnel complexes! Boy, then it gets really really creepy. Dark, dank, smelly and full of twists and turns, your mind wanders and the hair at the back of your neck begins to stand . You worry that you will get lost and won't be able to find your way out, or worst meet the ghosts of the former POWS in there! That's the feeling you get wandering underground in the tunnels.

I'm not too sure of this place or what's it supposed to be, a gun museum or a replica of the old fort? In the end it appears to be a bit of both, sigh.

Here are some pictures I took of the guns there. Click for a larger image if you really want to, haha.

At least there's a myth I learned that was broken... We all know of the infamous " ...guns that pointed South when the Japanese invaded from the North..."
The guns at the fort were in fact rotated and pointed north to pummel the Japanese army during the Battle of Singapore in 1942. Token action a little too late.