9/52

Week 9 of 52
Labrador Nature Reserve
Singapore

Alan and I always laugh that when we are on vacation and out exploring just about everyplace I choose as an activity involves some sort of climbing.  This past Sunday I went and explored Labrador Nature Reserve and in my usual fashion chose someplace that involved a lot of steps and climbing.

The park is located on the southern part of the island and apparently contains the only rocky sea-cliffs on the island of Singapore.  When I think of rocky sea-cliffs I think of the coast of Maine and these were nothing in comparison.  They were also a bit hard to see because of all of the vegetation from the park area.

One edge of the park marks the entrance to the Keppel Harbour area. 

The island on the other side of the water is Sentosa Island.  And off in the distance you can see some of the ships that make Singapore the second largest shipping port in the world.

The park has quite a few remnants from WWII.  Since it is on the southern tip of the island it was considered to be at risk for enemy landing so they built a fort to defend the island.  This such as machine gun posts still remain...

and old cannon posts up high on the hill...

and even an old cannon...

I took the picture looking out through the barrel of the cannon.

On my way up the 400 million steps that led to the top of the hill I passed a couple of elementary school age boys bounding down the steps.  One of them was very excited that there was a cannon at the top.  He told me to keep going and to 'be sure to see it' because apparently it is 'really great'.  He also informed that I wouldn't be able to fire it though, which was 'a bummer'.  I always love these little snippets of interaction from people in passing...this is one of those things that I will always remember when I think of Labrador Park.

At the top of the hill is a nature walk.  Along with nature-type things there are different bits about the old fort and Singapore's involvement in WWII.  It was an interesting walk but man were there loads of mosquitoes...and apparently I was the lunch special!  I read that there are old tunnels that you used to be able to go through but they are currently closed indefinitely for maintenance.  I hope they open up again before I leave Singers because it would be fun to wander through them.

The park area was nice and quite informative.  However, I wouldn't rank it as one of my favorite parks in Singapore.