Thursday, May 15, 2014

Changi Coastal Broadwalk

This path is quite forgotten by Singaporeans. It is just next to Changi Beach Park. It is situated to the right side of Changi Jetty. There are no elaborate playgrounds just a walking path with occasional sand beaches in between. The facility are quite worn out. Many railings has been marked as dangerous but not repaired. The bridges are quite old with floor planks corroded too. However, due to its isolated condition, it is a nice place to walk without having to compete with others. I only found out about the place when I was looking at the Changi Beach Park using OpenStreetMap. Google map does not show the track at all.

NParks did mention about this place in its DIY guide. I must have mistaken about it being part of Changi Beach Park thus failed to notice it.

The trip starts from the Bus stop at Telok Paku Rd near Changi Village. I took bus service no. 9 to get to Changi from Tanah Merah MRT.

Just next to the carpark behind the Bus stop is a community garden with a large number of white Butterflies flying about. It is almost impossible to take picture of them as they hardly stop long enough for me to focus on them. After several failed attempts, I finally gave up and walked away. I didn't have the right equipment to take fast shots of small flying objects. I don't intend to upgrade as my main aim is to take plant pictures. It is nice to have but not a necessity.

The Broad walk greets me with a shed that indicates its name.


There were workers that are doing tree trimming just behind the shed. It gave me the perfect opportunity to take a close up picture of a Sea Almond Tree fruit after it has been trimmed.


Further down, I notice some white flower that resembles Love Vine but is white. It turned out that this is the white version of the Love Vine.


Saw a False Lime Tree but its flowers have withered.


The whitish yellow color Ganges Primrose is quite nice looking from afar. On close up shot. It looks like it is about to wither too.


I have been trying to take a picture of this Parasitic Carpenter Bee. It is a large bee that hovers around. Could not take a picture of it resting. A smallish picture is all that I could do to capture its image. The flower in the picture is a Gold Shower shrub. In case you fail to find the bee, it is near the top left hand corner of the picture.


This flower looks like a Sea Hibiscus but the background leaves belongs to a shrub. I had a hard time trying to figure out till I finally decided that they are two separate plants. The flower just happened to drop on top of the shrub.


It is nice to see Weaver Ants at work making their home.



Almost at the end of the route, I saw a large number of dark color flying insects hovering over a patch of sand beach. At first I though they were dragon flies. Could not find out further as they never stop flying. Then my opportunity strikes. One of them goes down to the beach and stopped at a sand burrow. It is then I can see that they are actually wasps.

It is hard work trying to focus on the insect as the sun shines right onto my camera's LCD. I could hardly see the picture. Finally, I improvise by putting one hand over the LCD and use my head as sun shield. Managed to take a few pictures of wasps fighting with each other. Later I found out that they are Digger Wasps although I could not pinpoint the exact specie. They were constantly moving and I am already at maximum zoom although they are huge wasps.




I had to turn back as the track ends near some big rocks. On the way back,  I noticed something blue in the tree. It is a Delek Air. The first picture of all blue flower is blurred probably due to the strong wind.


As usual, I hate to walk back the same path. Thus I tried to look for the exit near the end. A good park design never have just one entrance. After looking around, I saw a path that does not end up with a resort. I decided to try it. It is a long one and at the end I saw the road. Turning back to look at the shed just before the road, The is a name on the shed too. It is funny that this name and the previous one does not match. Anyhow, it is not important.


From my map, I can see that the road leads to Loyang Ave and is joined with Netheravon Rd and its has a PCN (Loyang PC) that goes all the way to Changi Village again. I decided to take this route.

There is nothing much to see along the way. Turnhouse Park is just beside the PCN but it looks very barren. I decided not to enter the park. I can see another entrance to the Broadwalk a little bit further down from the park but decided that it is not a good choice to walk the 150 Meters to it.

There were a number of heritage trees along the PC. I managed to take picture on one of it only as that one is very near the PC and will look nice. This is a sepetir tree. It is very tall and huge.



I am not sure if this one is really a Fragant Thunbergia (White Lady). Its flower and leaves don't quite look like one. However, I could not find any match in all the four online web site. It is just an educated guess.



Well, At least  I recognize this Red Bean Tree although its seed pods are still green.


There after this tree, there is nothing much to take picture of. The trip ended in Telok Paku Rd again and I took back the same bus service number. Service no. 9 seems to be quite frequent. I missed the first one and the next just came less than a minute.

The wikiloc route map is here.

I will omit the Picasa album as most of the pictures are here already.

P/S. This is the first time I included fauna (animal) pictures. I guess I have evolved from a plant lover to a Naturalist. However, the emphasis is still on plants (Flora). I really have not much interest in Fauna.