The first trip up Kent Ridge (11jan08)

I was the bad girl who does not check her NUS webmail frequently enough. I did not appear for the first walk up Kent Ridge on Thursday . It sucked big time. I have no idea what happened and I wondered to the best of my ability what precious guidance Mr Siva gave to the rest.

I called Angela at almost 10 and begged her to go up the hill with me on Friday. I told her it was the 3.2km route + the 5km route. I quoted 2 hours of her time and said we're meeting early at like 8am. She said yes. Thank God for loyal friends! We met in our C0Curriculum Activities (Dragonboat) and we run these 2 routes quite often. I thought the sound of it would put her off. I might, if she asked me. Ewww. The 3.2km route is alright on foot but the 5km route is the one up Vigilante Drive! The map doesn't speak the steepness at all, neither does this photo.

Try sprinting up it. Don't if you have a weak knee.

Like on Kent Ridge Campus Forest Area, the forest area on Kent Ridge Park are slopes of varying steepness. That probably means nutrients run offs and thus a Adinandra belukar forest, where tuip tuip dominates on highly acidic and nutrient poor soils. A belukar is a low secondary forest on its was to recovery. Given enough time and space, succession may take place and eventually a primary forest will be formed.

My take is that it will never happen on Kent Ridge. Call me a pessimist but such a small area and including the fact that the plot of forest being so highly fragmented, it will be impossible to return Kent Ridge to its former glory of lush green.

I took my time to familiarize myself with the surroundings, explored the routes on the map I photocopied from the street directory (Mighty Minds). From S2, we walked down Kent Ridge Rd, turned into South Buona Vista Rd up the treacherous Vigilante Dr and down Science Park Dr. Stockport Rd results in a dead end due to some MINDEF building as it says on the map of Kent Ridge Park, well after the PUB building.



I enjoyed myself. Until Angela pointed out two skinks sunbathing along the forest edge of Kent Ridge Park. I admit I almost jumped out of my skin. I have never seen a skink before and besides, I have a genuine fear for lizards. It looked like one, with scales. Scary. I tried to take a photo of the fatter one and it jumped. I followed its motion. I satisfied myself with the skinnier one and left almost immediately. Wonder if I will have problem catching other stuff; need to do something about my courage levels. :P



We did not walk down the whole Kent Ridge Park as it was getting real warm. At 9.45am. Talk about global warming. We saw a few more birds that I could not put names to and a kingfisher at the pond and came out via Normanton Park and Science Park Drive.

I was actually proud of myself. Then I had to call Mr Siva. I was told that they went up Kent Ridge to view vegetation to figure out which plots were better for sampling depending on what plants grew on it. For example, acacia, a tree with the crescent shaped leaves that don't seem to decompose on sandy beaches is a plant indicator of soils with high salinity---not a good plot for sampling.

I was devastated. Will come back again tomorrow.