I DON'T generally like nature. Not the wild, overgrown, teeming with life kind of nature anyway.
So I was surprised that I actually agreed to go for an early morning stroll through 'rainforest' with a group of friends last Saturday.
The whole, 'get out of bed at the crack of dawn' part of the excursion put me off as well. I'm much more used to finishing work at midnight and partying until dawn.
Still, it was a chance to do something different and see a part of Singapore that I had so far avoided.
Being a person who is incapable of rational thought without a coffee, an hour with a newspaper and a shower, I set my alarm clock for 5.30am so I'd be at the park by the rendezvous time of 7.30am.
We were heading to HortPark in the Southwest of Singapore, off Alexandra Road. This park is apparently a 'one-stop gardening hub' according to the National Parks Singapore website.
The HortPark walk starts off with all sorts of plant related things in little 'mini' gardens and some lovely glassed in structures full of blooming flowers – this bit is called the 'Floral Walk'.
Keep going and you eventually come to a connecting walk that takes you up the side of a bit of a hill to Kent Ridge Park with its lookout pointing towards off-shore islands like Pulau Duran Darat.
This walk took me right into the local rainforest without ever having to worry about there being too much of it; rainforest that is.
It is nicely paved all the way, with a gentle switchback lacing up the hill and a great canopy walk that gives one a view of the area where one of the last battles of Singapore was fought. There are also information plaques about the flora and fauna of the area.
Apparently you can sometimes see monkeys as well. But we didn't. Either we were too noisy, too early or as one pundit stated, we didn't have any food with us; so no monkey visitors for us.
Once you get to the top of Kent Ridge you can play spot the island/ oil tanker/ shipping container and then either continue on to the Kent Ridge Trail that eventually leads to Clementi Woods and West Coast Park or, like us, just turn around and head back to HortPark.
The canopy walk actually ends up at Reflections at Bukit Chandu, right next to some very expensive pieces of real estate, and then you go down some steps until you reach the top of the wee hill track.
All in all, if we'd actually managed to get to the park at the designated time of 7.30am it would have been a lovely morning stroll, but thanks to a certain person who shall remain nameless (he knows who he is), we were all a bit late.
Starting off at about 8.30am meant that we were sweating freely and dodging families, joggers, tourists, a mad collection of people dressed in funny outfits (absolutely no idea who they were or what they were doing there) and kids in uniforms (not sure if they were scouts or something else) by the time we finished our walk.
Still, HortPark was an insight into the local environment for a non-native and for a non-wild nature lover reinforced why I've chosen to live in Singapore. At least some of the 'nature' in Singapore is exactly the way I like it – tidy, green, organised and safe.
You can have your wild reaches of Borneo; give me a nicely paved walking path any day.
Find out more about HortPark and Kent Ridge Park.