Top of the World

Well not quite since the highest point in Singapore is only just slightly over 160 metres. But that is Bukit Timah Hill and Bukit Timah hill is now close so the next highest point is Mt Faber at 105m and that where are the trail runners looking to race overseas are flocking to now that they are deprived of good old Bukit Timah.

I followed 1 group last week and did just 1 loop of the hill. One can get a pretty nice view of the Telok Blangah Estate from the top of the hill. The view stretches all the way to Orchard Rd. On the other side of the road, one can see Sentosa, the cable cars and on a clear day, some islands of Indonesia. Instead of using my own lousy camera to show the view from the top, here is a VR taken by Singapore top VR photographer, Aram Pan. Guess what? I am mentioned inside the post! Cheap thrill!

The beauty of running around these areas is that there are several high ground where you can have that top of the world feeling and look out far far away.

From Mt Faber, I went on to Telok Blangah Hill crossing the beautiful Henderson Waves Bridge. And right smack in the middle of the bridge which is 36 metres high you get these awesome view.

Looking southward towards the sea

The Telok Blangah and Bukit Merah estates

After the Henderson Waves Bridge is the Telok Blangah Hill. There are some mean slopes here including a very short and steep one up to Terrace Garden where you can another panoramic view.

Standing between Telok Blangah Hill and Kent Ridge is a patch of forest and over this is a series of metal bridge called the Forest Walk hovering over the forest. And beside being able to see the flora and fauna close up, one can get another great view of the far beyond.

After crossing the bridge, its up to Kent Ridge Park and here there is a series of zig zag path which leads to what is known as the Canopy Walk which comes with a view of the Hort Park below it.

From here it is a straight run down Kent Ridge Park. That is the easy part. But coming back up, there is either the long and steep Pepys Road or the other long and steep Vigilante Drive. By now after conquering the up and down from Mt Faber to Kent Ridge, I was well and truly beaten and could only managed to walk up Vigilante Drive. At the top of course the reward is another top of the world view.

All in, depending on how one runs, one can do up to 20 km covering Mt Faber, Telok Blangah Hill, Hort Park, Kent Ridge Park with total elevation of more than 500 metres. Not a lot by any other measures but certainly a good enough workout for those who want to do some serious hill runs and get many great view at the same time.

Here is the elevation for the run last week

Laksa Run (The Remake)

In 2006 when social group running was still in its infancy, I joined a group of the Sgrunners for what was known as the Laksa Run where we ran, took photos and end up with a nice meal. Since then, such group run has ran out of fashion with so many races every weekend. 

Fast forward 8 years later and finally we have a remake of the Laksa Run!  This is the then and now photo.

Photo Credit: Jancy

But so much has changed since then. For one thing, the railway track is no longer there. Now this place is called the Green Corridor. And of course back then quite a lot of people have much more hair. Now some have less - almost to zero! And some are of course no longer into running. And last but not least of the original cast of 15, only 4 turned up this time round. Can you identify them?

One of the highlight and sometimes bane of this sort of run is the crazy time taken to cover the route. Like this run which has a distance of just under 10 km but we took more than 1 hour 30 minutes to complete it stopping constantly to "smell flowers" and take photos. Of course it didn't help that there were plenty of slopes to challenge our creaking joints.

Up the slope at Kent Ridge Park

Up another slope at another part of Kent Ridge Park

The infamous zig zig path at Hort Park

Plenty of slope at Canterbury estate

 There used to be a tank here but it is gone now replaced by this information board.

Canterbury estate has plenty of this type of beautiful black and white bungalow. The air is so fresh and crisp here. 

The last stretch down the Alexandra Park Trail before our final destination

Our final destination. This claypot laksa at Alexandra Village Food Centre.

Our reward after 1 hour 45 minutes of sweat and toil. 

Sighed... the things we do to burn away the calories so that we can enjoy sinful delicious food.

Running Home - Toa Payoh to Pasir Ris

I haven't run home from work for quite a while. I was in Toa Payoh attending a course so I decided to run home from there rather than take the train home. I checked the distance on Google Map and and it was about 16km via the car route. I reckoned that the route by foot should be almost the same except that I will not go up the Kaki Bukit Viaduct.

I started from Toa Payoh Lorong 4 at about 5.45 pm. It was a short run out of Toa Payoh to Braddell Road. At junction of Lorong 1 and Lorong 6, I passed the magnificent Toa Payoh Seu Teck Siang Tong, a Taoist temple. Took this picture with my phone from across the road against the light so the picture doesn't show how impressive the entrance to the temple is. For a closer look, try this link

Braddell Road is not a very nice place to run, with heavy traffic. I don't like to breath in fumes but no choice, this was the only practical way to go back. But I did get a view of the cleaned up Kallang River.

I supposed I could follow the course of the river all the way down to Bendeemer Road and run home from Kallang or Sims Drive but that could be detouring too much and I didn't really feel like doing an extended distance run.

So I continued and reached Bartley Road and on my right was this lush green space. It was breath taking and I haven't run here before. Trails for exploration? 

Another view of the place further down the road. This is of course part of the Mount Vernon cemetery if I am not wrong. I should go there before it makes way for some condominium.

The last highlight along the road was this gateway. It looks like the structure of temples entrance but look closely, there is a cross at the top. This is in fact, the main entrance of a school and not just any school but a Christian school. Now I wonder why does a Christian school have a Temple looking entrance?

It got progressively too dark to take further photos. Anyway, by now I was on Hougang Ave 3 running next to heavy traffic and factories in Defu. I went into the Kaki Bukit area, took a wrong turn and wound up at some construction site and had to detour but eventually I reached the familiar Bedok Reservoir and with that it was just another 5 km to home.

Total distance according to my unreliable Timex watch was 16.8 km and I took almost 2 hours. Not too bad considering that I stopped to cross countless road junction and took pictures. But this will probably be the one and only time doing this route. Next up will be another run home from the real work place probably as soon as next week.

Never Stop Exploring - Beyond the Pipelines

By now most frequent trail runners in Singapore will know of the "3 pipelines" trail along Rifle Range Road. For those who don't understand what I trying to say, this is the place:

After our short new trail route, our craze ultra trail runner guide bought us to a new trail. This promises to be the mother of all trail because in as far as I can remember, other than the Green Corridor, this new trail is the longest single stretch trail that one can possibly run without making an u-turn or a loop.

The adventure started when fellow trail runners started posting pictures of pipelines. The common one that most of us recognise was the 3 pipelines along Rifle Range Road but 5 or 6 pipelines together?

Naturally, my curiosity was piqued. Where was this place and most important of all, how to get there? Then one morning while at Dairy Farm, I met a fellow runner who told me that it was a "short" run from Dairy Farm to Woodlands via these pipeline trails. And most important of all, he let in on the "secret" marking that entrance to this trail. Still I wasn't that confident of finding my way and so I enlisted the help of my craze ultra trail runner friend and volia, we killed 2 birds with 1 stone or rather ran 2 "new" trails on one run!

So from where we ended off, we cut across Rifle Range Road to the aforesaid 3 Pipelines trail and we went along Belukar Trail to Zhenghua before we ran along the stretch of Gangsa Trail leading to Mandai. The entrance to the new Pipelines Trail is somewhere along the Gangsa Trail.

Many of us travel along the various expressway almost every day and especially along the PIE, SLE and BKE, we often marvel at in land scare Singapore, there are still plenty of greenery alongside the expressway. Many times, I wonder what lies behind and where it can lead to and this morning we finally got the answer.

That is the BKE at the back of the  picture.

We even had to go under the expressway!

Never Stop Exploring - Hill and more Hills

A wise friend from KK sent me this great pearl of wisdom. 

And just nice, a trail and ultra crazy friend who is also doing the TMBT, showed a few of us a new trail with a "good" upslope to run.

I certainly wouldn’t use “shiok” to describe the new route but suffice to say, I walked all the up slopes and all the down slopes and all the uneven ground which comes out to 100% of the entire route!

Here are some pictures of this hitherto unknown trail, known only to hardcore trail runners like my friend.

This is the entrance to the trail. Haha, we have to run into the horizon. The sun is kinda obscuring the route so this trail shall continue to remain a secret known only to the hardcore few and me!

And then we came to the "upslope". Only it wasn't a real hill. Just a series of terrace cut into the forest.

While my friend went bouncing away up the slope like a goat, the rest of us more sanely peeps choosed to walk up. The grass here were rather long and the ground was uneven and cannot be seen. And I have this phobia of twisting my ankle so it was walk walk walk all the way up.

And this was the view from the top. Looking backward to where we just climbed up.

But instead of continuing, we had to go back down! (#*^%#$@. I should have stayed at the bottom cause if there anything I hate more than climbing up slope, its going down slopes where I always feel that I can just roll down.

But I made it down safely and then we had to "run along the drain". I had no idea what he referred to earlier when he said that but when I saw the drain, it finally sunk in. We were literally going to run along the drain.

Which couldn't be such a bad thing if not for the fact that the "drain" was 30 metres on top of the expressway! One wrong move and like Jack and Jill, we will go tumbling down the hill and become road kill!. I think the drivers must be wondering what those crazy guys were doing running right in the middle of the slope bordering the expressway.

That the PIE on the right of the picture

Thankfully we survived that but that not the end, we still have another new trail, again courtesy of my friend to explore and which would turn out to be the mother of all trails! But that is another story for another day.

Punggol Sengkang 21km Route

Decided to try running a full 21km around Punggol Sengkang area making use of the North Eastern Park Connector. Started off from the usual point at Lorong Halus. After crossing the bridge, we went over to the river side running on the by now very familiar red ground. This is what the Nparks call the Punggol Promenade Nature Walk.

From there, the park connector leads to Punggol Marina or the Punggol Promenade Punggol Point PCN which leads to the Punggol Waterway. Instead of turning back to Lorong Halus, we continued north towards Sengkang Riverside Park. The last time we ran there, we reached the expressway before we turned back. This time we continued past the expressway, through the Sengkang Riverside Park and continued along the river. This stretch of the park connector is simply called Punggol Park Connector.

It's a great feeling running along this park connector. So peaceful with trees and mangroves on both side of the track. Too bad this will probably soon disappear looking at the construction crane looming in the background.

Our route led us past the last kampong in mainland Singapore, the Lorong Buangkok kampung. We didn't detour to explore the place though. Must go back one day before it disappear. More on Kampung Buangkok on Singapore VR.

The houses behind the plants is the kampong

We continued down the park connector. The mangrove on the right are gone now, replaced by houses.

Never Stop Exploring - Beyond Woodcutter

Last year one of the highlight of the TNF Trail Run series was the Woodcutter Trail, a place which has reached mystical reputation for its swamp and easy to get lost trails. I ran there once but failed to make it for the official run. Read the account by Brokenrunner here. Since then, none of us has been back there until last week when we finally decided to hit the trails again.

We started at the usual place from Upp Peirce and went in. All was fine and dainty. Except for giant mud pool that keeps wanting to eat our shoes, everything else was exactly the same and looks unchanged. The fallen trees were still there. The overhanging vines, the protruding branches, the web of roots everything that nature can throw at us humans to stop us from desecrating their grounds. But what is a few muddy shoes, some broken skins compared to the joy of hitting the trails? Anyway, we reached where we wanted to go, did our u-turn to go back and that's where we got itchy and decided to detour from the known path.

Our first detour brought us up this narrow path to a place with a big red sign warning of helicopters maneuvering and to keep out, Did not stop us? Of course not, we went right in hoping to catch a glimpse of helicopters but alas all we got was a big open field.

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So the helicopter place is not very happening. We went off in double quick time and continued our way until we came to another fork. We took the one less travelled and went up and up cutting our legs numerous times on the sharp leaves of some ferns on the narrow trail. For our blood and sweat, we reached another big open field. Our GPS showed that we were now nearer to Seletar than Peirce but how to go down? A quick look around the place didn't show any other path other than the one we can up on. Reluctantly, we made our way back swearing to come back with more experts to figure out the route.

Fast foward one week later and we are back! This time determined to unravel the exit point from the big open ground and surmising that it could be from Seletar, we decided to start our exploration there or at this spot to be precise.

See the red sign there? Did that stop us again? Of course not, in we go with 2 new members but unfortunately after bashing through thick vegetation for 800 metres and taking almost half an hour for that, we decided to give up and retract our steps to fight run another day! What a downer!

So anyway, to the trail runners who know how to run from Seletar to Peirce, this is an appeal - can help help a bit and show us the way? Email me or pm me on FB, SMS, Whats App, Viber, ........(if you know me personally. Arigato Dozamasu!

Never Stop Exploring - Dead end Run

M didn't feel well this morning so we abandoned the plan to go East Coast for the weekly run. Laze around in bed before deciding to drag my bum up and out for a solo run but to where? In the end decided to just run anywhere. 

Hit the road about 7.30 am but fortunately the sun was a bit shy today and hiding behind the cloud. Went the usual route to the park before deciding to go into the mangrove boardwalk. After that came to the 2nd park went in between some concrete structure. Funny how come never came this way at all before? Finally exited through the private estate, huffing and puffing up the short slope. And from here, the adventure began.

First went up this trail that was covered in many places with mostly man-made obstacles. That should be the signal for me not to go this way but I persisted. At one stage, ran smack into a giant spider web and had web all over me even until I reached home! After climbing 2 artificial mounds and 1 low gate barrier, I came to this wide open trail.

After about 1km, I came to my first dead end. It wasn't exactly a dead end. There was a bridge, with a low gate that was padlocked. But more ominously, there was a sign that said it was a protected military area and no trespassers. Sighed.If there was no padlock gate, I would have just ran across, sign be damned but with a padlock and a military camp behind the bridge, I chickened out and did my first u-turn of the morning.

After about 200 metres, there was a small path and I decided to try my luck and came to this 'nice looking' place. A scene like in some movie where a giant croc will just spring out from the water. But lucky thing, there was no croc here.Instead, there was an old man. No he didn't spring out of the water. He was maintaining the water pump with which he used to pump sea water from the sea to the farm.

What farm? The fish farm lor. Right at the end of this muddy path. But the kindly uncle warned me not to proceed this way. He said got dogs which will bite. Of course, me being me, what is a few dogs? So instead of heeding his advice to turn back, I went up this path towards the dogs.

But first took a picture of the fish pond.

And true enough, after clearing the fish pond, came to a few buildings, presumably the fish farms. And that was where the dogs appeared. Not one, not two but three. They started barking aggressively. Barking dog seldom bite, so they said so I ignored them and continued to run which was when all 3 decided I looked easy meat and started chasing me. Never turn your back on a dog. So I wanted to turn round and confront them but I knew if they attacked, either I get injured or they get injured since I was pretty much bigger size than them and I reckoned I could easily kick them into the fish pond. Ha ha ha. But the battle was avoided when a lady voice ran out and called off the hounds. Whew!

So me continued my exploring until it came to a stop at this "stream". 2nd dead end. Okay, I could try to bash through and wade across but I didn't want to get my shoes too dirty so no choice did a 1.5km detour which brought me out to the main road before coming back on the opposite bank. 

After another 1 km of road, came to this place. The place stinks! But I persisted only to be rewarded with my 3rd dead end. Sighed. How come so suay? Turned back on the stinking trail and just decided to follow whatever available routes and there were plenty.

Like this wet and muddy trail. There were many of them crisscrossing here and there and I went through most of them.

One of the place I wanted to run to was an old place I ran before last year. And I finally found the way to it only to see that the path has been overtaken by the plants. Anybody can recognise this place? Clue - the metal chain in the middle of the picture. So my third dead end.

Finally, came upon this beautiful pond. Only it is not a pond but a big puddle right in the middle of the path and beyond that like no more place to go. 4th dead end and time to go home. 

Total 16km at a nice easy pace with the sun occasionally coming out to light the world. Back home, I discovered there were still strands of spiderweb all over me. Now I wondering, did any spider hitched a ride on me home?