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

Singapore Singapore, officially the Republic of Singapore, is an island country and city-state in Southeast Asia. The country's territory comprises one main island, 63 satellite islands and islets, and one outlying islet. It is about one degree ...

. 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 and

HarbourFront HarbourFront is a waterfront district situated in southern Singapore. Whilst HarbourFront's boundaries are ambiguous, its location is roughly represented on the URA's Master Plan as a subzone called Maritime Square, located within the Bukit Me ...

. 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 boards of the Singapore Government, statutory board under the Ministry of National Development (Singapore), Ministry of National De ...

(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 Mount Faber, formerly Telok Blangah Hill, is a hill about in height, located in the town of Bukit Merah in the Central Region, Singapore, Central Region of Singapore. It overlooks the Telok Blangah area and the western parts of the Central Are ...

, Telok Blangah Hill Park and the Kent Ridge Park.

Mount Faber Park

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 exhibited natural or cultural value, historical significance, natural or built beauty, offering leisure and amusement. Types Places of natural beau ...

. 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 The National University of Singapore (NUS) is a national university, national Public university, public research university in Singapore. It was officially established in 1980 by the merging of the University of Singapore and Nanyang University ...

and the Singapore Science Park. Due to its undisturbed

habitat In ecology, habitat refers to the array of resources, 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 manifestation of its ...

and abundant plant life, it is a popular venue for bird-watchers and eco-tourists.

Trails

There are 8

trail A trail, also known as a path or track, is an unpaved lane or a small paved road (though it can also be a route along a navigable waterways) generally not intended for usage by motorized vehicles, usually passing through a natural area. Ho ...

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 (Singapore), Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) interchange station in Singapore. The termini of the North East MRT line, North East line (NEL) and Circle MRT line, Circle line (CCL), the stat ...

along the North East and Circle MRT lines to the cable car station at The Jewel Box on

. 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 ...

through

secondary forest A secondary forest (or second-growth forest) is a forest or woodland area which has regenerated through largely natural processes after human-caused Disturbance (ecology), disturbances, such as Logging, timber harvest or agriculture clearing, or ...

Faber Trail

Faber Trail is a trail going through the

Park. It ends at the Henderson Waves. At its peak, it offers

panoramic A panorama (formed from Greek πᾶν "all" + ὅραμα "view") is any wide-angle view or representation of a physical space, whether in painting, drawing, photography (panoramic photography), film, seismic images, or 3D modeling. The word ...

views of the southern part of Singapore and the Southern Islands.

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 shelters 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 is an electric light that produces light using light-emitting diodes (LEDs). LED lamps are significantly more energy-efficient than equivalent incandescent lamps and fluorescent lamps. The most efficient commercial ...

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. ...

that cuts through about through the

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 a ...

of trees and offers a

bird's-eye view A bird's-eye view is an elevated view of an object or location from a very steep viewing angle, creating a perspective (graphical), perspective as if the observer were a bird in flight looking downward. Bird's-eye views can be an aerial photog ...

of the forest. The Forest Walk also connects to the Labrador Nature & Coastal Walk (), also leading walkers to the Labrador Park MRT station and

Labrador Park Labrador Nature Reserve (Simplified Chinese, Chinese: 拉柏多自然保护区, Malay language, Malay: Kawasan Simpanan Alam Semulajadi Labrador), also known locally as Labrador Park (拉柏多公园, Taman Labrador), is located in the southern p ...

Alexandra Arch

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

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

, connecting Alexandra Road, Singapore and Hyderabad Road. It was designed by

Buro Happold Buro Happold Limited (previously ''BuroHappold Engineering'') is a British professional services firm that provides engineering consultancy, design, planning, project management, and consulting services for buildings, infrastructure, and the env ...

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 in several countries a drinking establishment licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption Licensing laws of the United Kingdom#On-licence, on the premises. The term first appeared in England in the ...

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 long ...

. 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 (). The term angiosperm is derived from the Ancient Greek, Greek words (; 'container, vessel') and (; 'seed'), meaning that the seeds are enclosed with ...

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 (OSS), 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 ...

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 Kent Ridge Park 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

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

wildlife Wildlife refers to domestication, undomesticated animals and uncultivated plant species which can exist in their natural habitat, but has come to include all organisms that grow or live wilderness, wild in an area without being species, introdu ...

that lives there, such as

squirrel Squirrels are members of the family Sciuridae (), a family that includes small or medium-sized rodents. The squirrel family includes tree squirrels, ground squirrels (including chipmunks and prairie dogs, among others), and flying squirrel ...

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 i ...

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 small heads, relatively short necks and slender bills that in some species feature fleshy ceres. ...

lizard Lizard is the common name used for all Squamata, squamate reptiles other than snakes (and to a lesser extent amphisbaenians), encompassing over 7,000 species, ranging across all continents except Antarctica, as well as most Island#Oceanic isla ...

s and white-crested laughing thrushes.

Ecological Projects

Sembcorp Forests of Giants

Sembcorp Sembcorp Industries is a Singaporean state-owned 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 w ...

Industries has donated $1 million to the Garden City Fund, an NParks charity, to set up an

arboretum An arboretum (: arboreta) is a botanical collection composed exclusively of trees and shrubs of a variety of species. Originally mostly created as a section in a larger garden or park for specimens of mostly non-local species, many modern arbor ...

– 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'' (tualang) and ''

Shorea faguetiana ''Richetia faguetiana'' is a species of plant in the family Dipterocarpaceae. Along with other species in the genus '' Richetia'', it is also known as the '' yellow meranti.'' It is native to Borneo, the Malay Peninsula, and Thailand. It is the s ...

'' (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 Dicr ...

. 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 NV (commonly referred to as ST or STMicro) is a European multinational semiconductor contract manufacturing and design company. It is the largest of such companies in Europe. It was founded in 1987 from the merger of two 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