The Southern Ridges comprise of trails connecting three parks along the southern ridge of

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, bor ...

. Some of the attractions along these trails include its greenery and the connecting bridges. This project linked up the parks between the

Kent Ridge Park Kent Ridge Park is a 47-hectare public park located in Kent Ridge, Singapore, between the National University of Singapore and the Singapore Science Park. Due to its undisturbed habitat and abundant plant life, it is a popular venue for bi ...

and HarbourFront. The idea to link these parks was coined in 2002 by

Urban Redevelopment Authority The Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) is the national urban planning authority of Singapore, and a statutory board under the Ministry of National Development of the Government of Singapore. Mission The authority was established on 1 April ...

(URA) and it took 2 years to complete and cost S$25.5 million.

Parks

There are 3 parks that are connected to each other: Mount Faber, Telok Blangah Hill Park and the

Mount Faber Park

Mount Faber Park is one of the oldest parks in Singapore and a popular

tourist destination A tourist attraction is a place of interest that tourists visit, typically for its inherent or an exhibited natural or cultural value, historical significance, natural or built beauty, offering leisure and amusement. Types Places of natural ...

. The park is connected to Telok Blangah Hill Park by Henderson Waves bridge. The park consists of such locations as the Marina Deck, Palm Plaza, Jewel Box, and Faber Point.

Telok Blangah Hill Park

It is a 34-hectare park which is a popular place for wedding couples. A series of semi-circular terrace garden located at the top of the park is the Terrace Garden.

Kent Ridge Park

Kent Ridge Park is a 47-hectare public park between the National University of Singapore and the

Singapore Science Park Singapore Science Park; ta, முன்னேறட்டும் சிங்கப்பூர் is a research, development and technologies hub in Queenstown, Singapore. Managed by Ascendas, a subsidiary of Capitaland, it was set up unde ...

. Due to its undisturbed

habitat In ecology, the term habitat summarises the array of resources, physical and biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species habitat can be seen as the physical ...

and abundant plant life, it is a popular venue for

bird-watcher Birdwatching, or birding, is the observing of birds, either as a recreational activity or as a form of citizen science. A birdwatcher may observe by using their naked eye, by using a visual enhancement device like binoculars or a telescope, b ...

s and eco-tourists.

Trails

There are 8

trail A trail, also known as a path or track, is an unpaved lane or small road usually passing through a natural area. In the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland, a path or footpath is the preferred term for a pedestrian or hiking trail. ...

s at Southern Ridges.

Marang Trail

Marang Trail is long and an elevation of . It extends from Marang Road, just behind the

HarbourFront MRT station HarbourFront MRT station is an underground Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) interchange station in Singapore. The termini of the North East line (NEL) and Circle line (CCL), the station serves the HarbourFront area and Sentosa. Surrounding retail an ...

along the North East and Circle MRT lines to the cable car station at The Jewel Box on Mount Faber. The trail consists of steps and shaded

footpaths A footpath (also pedestrian way, walking trail, nature trail) is a type of thoroughfare that is intended for use only by pedestrians and not other forms of traffic such as motorized vehicles, bicycles and horses. They can be found in a wide v ...

through secondary forest.

Faber Trail

Faber Trail is a trail going through the Mount Faber Park. It ends at the Henderson Waves. At its peak, it offers panoramic views of the southern part of Singapore and the

Southern Islands The Southern Islands is a planning area consisting of a collection of islets located within the Central Region of Singapore, once home to the native Malay islanders and sea nomads before they were relocated to the mainland for urban redevelopm ...

Henderson Waves

Henderson Waves is a pedestrian bridge. At above Henderson Road, it is the highest pedestrian bridge in Singapore. It connects Mount Faber Park and Telok Blangah Hill Park. It was designed by the London-based consortium IJP Architects / AKTII Consulting Civil and Structural Engineers, with RSP Architects Planners and Engineers (PTE) ltd Singapore. Architect George L. Legendre is the designer of th
project

The bridge has a wave-form made up of seven undulating curved steel ribs that alternately rise over and under its deck. The curved ribs form alcoves that function as

shelter Shelter is a small building giving temporary protection from bad weather or danger. Shelter may also refer to: Places * Port Shelter, Hong Kong * Shelter Bay (disambiguation), various locations * Shelter Cove (disambiguation), various locatio ...

s with seats within. Slats of yellow balau wood, an all-weather timber found in Southeast Asia, are used in the decking. The wave-forms are lit with

LED lamp An LED lamp or LED light bulb is an electric light that produces light using light-emitting diodes (LEDs). LED lamps are significantly more energy-efficient than equivalent incandescent lamps and can be significantly more efficient than mo ...

s at night from 7 pm to 2 am daily. It also was built in 2008 costing £25.5m.

Hilltop Walk

Hilltop Walk is a trail which runs through Telok Blangah Hill Park. The trail connects on one end with the Henderson Waves and the other with the Forest Walk leading to Alexandra Arch.

Forest Walk

Forest Walk is a

walkway In American English, walkway is a composite or umbrella term for all engineered surfaces or structures which support the use of trails. '' The New Oxford American Dictionary'' also defines a walkway as "a passage or path for walking along, esp. a ...

that cuts through about through the secondary forest in Telok Blangah Hill Park and connects to Alexandra Arch. The raised walkway with heights ranging from to brushes the

canopy Canopy may refer to: Plants * Canopy (biology), aboveground portion of plant community or crop (including forests) * Canopy (grape), aboveground portion of grapes Religion and ceremonies * Baldachin or canopy of state, typically placed over an ...

of trees and offers a bird's-eye view of the forest. The Forest Walk also connects to the Labrador Nature & Coastal Walk (), also leading walkers to the

Labrador Park MRT station Labrador Park MRT station is an underground Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) station on the Circle line, located within Bukit Merah planning area, Singapore. Built underneath Telok Blangah Road near the junctions of Alexandra Road and Labrador Villa ...

and Labrador Park.

Alexandra Arch

Alexandra Arch is an bridge that features a curved deck and tilted arch like an opened

leaf A leaf ( : leaves) is any of the principal appendages of a vascular plant stem, usually borne laterally aboveground and specialized for photosynthesis. Leaves are collectively called foliage, as in "autumn foliage", while the leaves, ste ...

, connecting Alexandra Road, Singapore and Hyderabad Road. It was designed by Buro Happold with LOOK Architects. The Gillman Village, which was a former British

military camp A military camp or bivouac is a semi-permanent military base, for the lodging of an army. Camps are erected when a military force travels away from a major installation or fort during training or operations, and often have the form of large cam ...

in the early 20th century, now houses a mixture of restaurants,

pubs A pub (short for public house) is a kind of drinking establishment which is licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption on the premises. The term ''public house'' first appeared in the United Kingdom in late 17th century, and was ...

and

art galleries An art gallery is a room or a building in which visual art is displayed. In Western cultures from the mid-15th century, a gallery was any long, narrow covered passage along a wall, first used in the sense of a place for art in the 1590s. The lon ...

. Like the Henderson Waves bridge, Alexandra Arch will be lit with colour-changing

s. At the end of the Alexandra Arch, there is a path lined with

flowering plant Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, and form the clade Angiospermae (), commonly called angiosperms. The term "angiosperm" is derived from the Greek words ('container, vessel') and ('seed'), and refers to those plants th ...

s which leads to the HortPark.

Floral Walk & HortPark

Floral Walk is a trail which offers a stroll along a path lined with

s. It forms the gateway to HortPark – the gardening hub. It is a 23-hectare park Southeast Asia's first

one stop shop A one-stop shop, in public administration, is a government office where multiple services are offered, allowing customers to access these services in a centralized location rather than in different places. The term originated in the United States ...

for gardening-related recreational, educational, research and retail activities in a park setting. Some park highlights include themed gardens as well as outdoor display plots showcasing designs and ideas for home gardening.

Canopy Walk

Canopy Walk is a trail which links

to Reflections at Bukit Chandu – once known as Opium Hill and site of one of the last battles of Singapore in World War II and HortPark. Elevated at the centre, Canopy Walk goes through secondary forest with groves of

Tembusu The tembusu is a large evergreen tree in the family Gentianaceae, native to Southeast Asia (from Indo-China to New Guinea). It is the Malay name for ''Cyrtophyllum fragrans'' (synonym ''Fagraea fragrans''). Its trunk is dark brown, with deeply ...

and dominant trees of the adinandra belukar. It is also filled with rich

wildlife Wildlife refers to undomesticated animal species, but has come to include all organisms that grow or live wild in an area without being introduced by humans. Wildlife was also synonymous to game: those birds and mammals that were hunted ...

that lives there, such as squirrels,

sunbird Sunbirds and spiderhunters make up the family Nectariniidae of passerine birds. They are small, slender passerines from the Old World, usually with downward-curved bills. Many are brightly coloured, often with iridescent feathers, particularly ...

doves Columbidae () is a bird family consisting of doves and pigeons. It is the only family in the order Columbiformes. These are stout-bodied birds with short necks and short slender bills that in some species feature fleshy ceres. They primarily ...

, lizards and white-crested laughing thrushes.

Ecological Projects

Sembcorp Forests of Giants

Sembcorp Sembcorp Industries (Sembcorp) is an energy and urban development company. Sembcorp's marine division provided a variety of services, including the engineering and construction of offshore platforms for oil extraction, until it was demerg ...

Industries has donated $1 million to the Garden City Fund, an NParks charity, to set up an arboretum – a living gallery of giant tree species – for education and research, and to fund green educational programmes to benefit the community. This is part of efforts to enhance biodiversity within urban areas. These trees are native to the rainforests of the region and include some of the world's tallest species. For example, ''

Koompassia excelsa ''Koompassia excelsa'' (known as tualang in Peninsula Malaysia, tapang in Sarawak, mangaris in Sabah, and bangris in Kalimantan ) is an emergent tropical rainforest tree species in the family Fabaceae. It is found in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Phi ...

'' (tualang) and ''

Shorea faguetiana ''Shorea faguetiana'' is a species of plant in the family Dipterocarpaceae. Along with other species in the genus ''Shorea'', it is also called '' Yellow Meranti.'' It is native to Borneo, the Malay Peninsula, and Thailand. It is the tallest fl ...

'' (Damar Siput) have been recorded at heights of 88 m. Accompanying these grand trees are also other emergent species with heights from 50 m to 80 m tall, where the typical mature rainforest canopy reaches. Topographical contours and features at the Southern Ridges are exploited and designed for an assemblage of large native trees, creating a most impressive sight amidst the ridges of Telok Blangah and Mount Faber. A subsidiary collection of forest trees with large foliage is also planned to be interspersed in between the Sembcorp Forest of Giants collection to serve as interesting visual points.

The Singing Forest

In 2010, NParks planted around 200 trees of 38 native species of Singapore alongside a forest trail near Gillman Village in the Southern Ridges. The trees were planted to provide a variety of shelter and food, via its fruits, to native birds such as hornbills, fruit pigeons and the

greater racket-tailed drongo The greater racket-tailed drongo (''Dicrurus paradiseus'') is a medium-sized Asian bird which is distinctive in having elongated outer tail feathers with webbing restricted to the tips. They are placed along with other drongos in the family Dic ...

. This was also to attract the native birds to return to the area, which used to nest there, from their current nests in the deep forested areas. The project was sponsored by

ST Microelectronics STMicroelectronics N.V. commonly referred as ST or STMicro is a Dutch multinational corporation and technology company of French-Italian origin headquartered in Plan-les-Ouates near Geneva, Switzerland and listed on the French stock market. ST ...

via the Garden City Fund, an NParks charity.

References

External links

National Parks Board – Southern Ridges (with map)

National Biodiversity Centre, Singapore

Southern Ridges Guide
* {{Parks in Singapore Parks in Singapore Tourist attractions in Singapore Hills of Singapore