Coast-to-Coast Trail: CP6 to CP7

Sunday 2019.09.22

Coast-to-Coast Trail	Day 02
Start	Checkpoint 06 Luxus Hill Park
End	Checkpoint 07 Sengkang Riverside Park
Distance	2.69 km

C2C Trail CP6 to CP7 2.69 km

After yesterday's walk from CP5 (AMK-Bishan Park) to CP6 (Luxus Hill Park), we continued with the second leg of our C2C Trail journey today by walking from CP6 to CP7 (Sengkang Riverside Park, also known as the Floating Wetlands). It was a leisurely walk over a distance of about three km.

We started our journey from CP6 at about 06:26 hrs and arrived at CP7 at 07:12 hrs

06:26 hrs CP6, our short walk started here

06:49 hrs A long deserted road ahead

06:50 hrs Another 1.8 km to go

07:12 hrs Yay! We have reached CP7 Sengkang Riverside Park after walking for 46 minutes

07:13 hrs We decided to spend some time exploring the Sengkang Riverside Park nearby

07:14 hrs This is the bridge that brings us over to the Sengkang Floating Wetlands in the middle of the Punggol river.

07:15 hrs Walking across the Punggol River towards the west bank of the Riverside Park

07:15 hrs A long road bridge spans the north-eastern part of the Punggol River

07:16 hrs Looking out towards the middle of the Punggol River

07:17 hrs Lots of Piai Raya ferns, acrostichum aureum

Piai Raya ferns are usually found in brackish waters on the land side of mangrove swamps. Traditionally, the leaves can be shredded and pounded to make a poultice for treatment of boils, ulcers and even snake bites.

The southern-most tip of Johore state is Tanjung Piai, named after this medicinal fern.

07:17 hrs A zoomed out view of the Piai Raya ferns

07:20 hrs Large slices of "oranges" for public seating on the platform of the Floating Wetlands

Coast-to-Coast Trail: CP5 to CP6

Saturday 2019.09.21

Coast-to-Coast Trail	Day 01
From	Checkpoint 05 (AMK-Bishan Park 1)
To	Checkpoint 06 (Luxus Hill Park)
Distance	6.59 km with a detour to AMK Town Gdn West

C2C Trail CP5 to CP6: 6.59 km

This morning we began our first leg of walking the Coast-to-Coast (C2C) Trail by starting at Checkpoint 5 (CP5) in AMK-Bishan Park near our apartment block. In the comng weeks, we intend to cover all the Checkpoints from CP5 to CP10 in Punggol in the north-east, after which we will start from CP5 again and head "backwards" to CP1 in Jurong Lake Gardens on the south-west side of the island.

06:30 Start. We couldn't find CP5, so we started at one of these signposts, AMK-Bishan Park

A blur map in the twilight of dawn wasn't of much help to us

Reached the end of AMK Ave 6, looking south

We turned right, crossed the intersection to AMK Ave 5, and headed east

08:10 hrs We arrived at Luxus Hill, distance 6.59 km

CP6 is located at Luxus Hill Park

A snapshot of Luxus Hill Park

We came across a C2C promotion banner in the park

Goodbye! Luxus Hill Park

08:16 hrs
We finished our slow journey from Checkpoint 5 to Checkpoint 6 in this first leg of walking the Coast-to-Coast Trail. A distance of 6.59 km that took us about an hour and forty-five minutes.

08:34 hrs
We boarded double decker bus no. 50 at Ang Mo Kio Avenue 5 towards AMK Hub.

Aboard double decker no.50 along AMK Ave 5

Passing by AMK Stn across Ave 3

10:44 hrs
Later, I cycled out to AMK-Bishan Park to look for the starting Checkpoint 5 which we missed this morning. After some exploring, I found it beside the Water Playground.

At last, I found CP5 !

Beside the Water Playground.

A long walk around Punggol

Sat 09.02.2019 Park Connector walk:
Punggol Waterway Point to Punggol Settlement, Marina Country Club and back. 12km.

10:54 hrs:
This sunny Saturday morning, I took a train to Punggol Waterway Point and began my long walk at the Punggol Waterway Park

11:42 hrs
It took me about fifty minutes to reach the eastern end of the Punggol River after walking 3.5 km. I crossed the Sunrise Gateway bridge to take a look around the NE tip of the mainland facing Serangoon Island. I guessed I had another 5 to 6 km to go.

12:24 hrs
After walking for forty minutes, I arrived at the West Entrance to Coney Island (Serangoon Island). My next stop would be Punggol Village Settlement, about 2 km away. Chilli crab, Chilli crab . . .

13:02 hrs
Another forty minutes later, I passed by the Punggol Settlement, followed shortly by the Marina Country Club. My next stop was to reach the Jewel Bridge on the western end of Waterway Park, where I would cross the Punggol River again and make my way back to Waterway Point to complete my big loop of walking.

13:30 hrs On the way to Jewel Bridge, I took a wrong turn after misreading the online map on my phone and ended up crossing over to Seletar North Link. By the time I realised my mistake and turned back to where I came from, I had wasted more than ten minutes of walking time under the hot afternoon sun. I decided to take a short rest under a shelter not far away from Jewel Bridge.

13:48 hrs All's well that ends well. In just less than twenty-minutes after my little rest at the shelter, I was back again at Waterway Point where I started about three hours earlier this morning.

Yippee yay yippee yippee yay! I had walked a total of 16,800 steps over a distance of 12.2 km today.

Foothills of Gua Tempurung

I started off from home on this cool cloudy Wednesday morning to meet up with Ganesan at the traffic-lights junction near Kampar Sentral, the entrance to Bandar Baru Kampar, at seven o'clock.

We rode northwards along the moderately busy trunk-road to meet Hanif and the three of us then proceeded to Jeram New Village for our breakfast about 8 km away. 

0700 Bandar Baru 0734 First time at Jeram Breakfast 8.61km

After a hearty chat at breakfast with Hanif, Ganesan (who bought all of us idiapam aka puttumayam), Ng Wan Thim (the PKR chairman of Jeram branch who bought us drinks), Fabian Wylie and his wife Lee Lean, the three of us proceeded towards Gua Tempurung at 0823hr, another six km away.

We reached the main entrance to the Gua Tempurung caves at about nine o'clock and headed for the off-road trail that skirts around the foot-hills. I have not been riding off-road for some time and the first couple of km was taxing, maintaining my balance over loose stones and uneven tracks while trying to catch up with Hanif and Ganesan ahead of me. They had to stop and wait for me a couple of times.

0905hr Gua Tempurung 16.64km. Off road for the last 2km

After a few km of off-road riding, we stopped briefly to look at the tranquil and refreshing scenery across a small bridge.

By about half-past nine, we arrived at the foot-bridge over the north-south highway. We stopped again briefly before heading on the final stretch of the trail leading to our destination.

0920hr across the plus highway. 17.92km heading north

My hands felt rather light and "empty" this morning. Then I realised that I have forgotten to wear my cycling gloves.

Forgot to bring my gloves. My palms felt sticky on the rubber handle.

We reached the illegal dump-site at about 0925hr. Ganesan took some photos of some new bags of rubbish thrown into the ditch that has been covered up with some land fill.

0925hr 18.56km We arrived at the rubbish dump-site that Ganesan complained about

Another look at the scenic hills around us before resuming our ride.

After Ganesan and Hanif had had a good look over the partially covered-up dump site, we proceeded to ride to Kg Jahang a couple of km away. There we stop briefly by the rocky bank of the Sungei Jahang with its clear inviting waters splashing over many rocks in a small rapid.

This stream is part of a popular whitewater rafting course.

0940hr The Jahang River at Kampung Jahang 20.24km

Whitewater rafting site

Me, with the little rapid in the background

My three year-old Raleigh Echo taking a short rest

Soon it was time for us to embark on our journey home.

After getting back onto the trunk road via SK Gunung Panjang, we rode southwards, stopping for tea at Kafé Gua on the return leg from Gua Tempurung.

1020hr 26.07km With Hanif, waiting for roti bakar telor goyang (half-boiled egg on toast) at Kafe Gua

1052hr: After another round of chit-chat with lots of laughter thrown in, we rode our last ten km home. Hanif broke away from us at the Malim Nawar junction towards Bandar Agacia Kampar via Malim Nawar town while Ganesan and I carried on riding on the trunk road towards Kampar town.

1135hr Home

I reached home at about half-past eleven, one of the few times I finished cycling before noon. It was a cool and pleasant ride today along some mildly demanding off-road trails under cloudy skies with lots of shade from trees along the way. I have nick-named today's ride, "Gua Tempurung: the Shadowy Trail".

Kinta Riverside Off-road

Today we're cycling to Taman Alam Kinta via Kinta Riverbank and Batu Gajah. Our route passed through Kampar - Kinta Riverbank off-road from Tg Tualang to Batu Gajah (18km) - Batu Gajah - off road on opposite riverbank to Kinta Nature Park - Kota Bahru - Malim Nawar - Kampar.

This ride was supposed to be a 30 km ride, so said Ganesan our event host this morning. We were to discover for ourselves during the ride later on that this was not so. 

It was more like 30km one way . . .

And that became the joke of the day. We would ask the same question over and over again during the ride, "Ganesan, are you sure it's only 30km?" and somebody would reply, "30 km one way . . ."

It turned out to be 56.88km on my cyclometer, tracking the distance from and back to my house.

0805hr Waiting for other riders at WestLake Villas 2.63km

We started off on our ride shortly after eight o'clock.

0815hr Just crossed the bridge over the railway tracks, rolling downslope towards West City

0830hr Approaching the intersection to Tg Tualang 6.53km

0840hr Onwards to River Kinta in the direction of Tg Tualang

Reached the bridge over River Kinta near Tg Tualang. The 18km riverbank off-road ride starts here. 10.75km 0847hr

10.75km At the bridge over the River Kinta 0847hr

The following photos give an idea of the conditions we went through along the riverside trail.
Photo Credit: Adrian Wong, Ganesan Raju.

Adrian took this snapshot of my very mud choked tyres

Trying to scrape off some of the stubborn sticky mud from the frame and tyres

Another view of my mud choked front tyres

It was a relief when the muddy stretch ended, and stony trail began

A third of the way into the riverbank section after crossing some very sticky mud stretches at 17.41km 0945hr, the muddy path became a stony trail. The tyres still look muddy after trying to dislodge as many chunks as possible by riding over the gravel.

0945hr 17.41km Pressing on along the stony riverbank

Some mud still remained on the tyre wall despite trying to "rub" it off on the gravel trail

Two thirds of the riverbank covered and we decided to take a rest. Hanif takes a sip from his hydration pack while Adrian and Leroy have a chat. 21.99km 1015hr

1011hr Taking a riverside break.

1015hr 21.99km Hanif getting a drink from his hydration pack.

At last Batu Gajah town is in sight . . .

 
We reached Batu Gajah for breakfast at an Indian restaurant nearby. Adrian had to break away from us to ride solo back to Kampar for family commitments. 28.17km 1050hr

Adrian had to break away from us to ride home on the BG - TT trunk road. I was undecided whether to accompany him.

1050hr 28.17km Breakfast at an Indian restaurant in Batu Gajah

In the restaurant, I wasn't aware that the colour of my jersey matched the colour of the tables and chairs Ha! Ha!

 
After breakfast, we rode to Kota Bahru via the opposite of the Kinta Riverbank passing by Kinta Nature Park. 38.41km 1215hr

1215hr Arriving at Kota Bahru station 38.41km

From Kota Bahru we headed towards Malim Nawar via the old road through Kg Changkat Belulang. 42.74km 1235hr

1235hr Kg Changkat Belulang. 42.74km

1300hr Reached Kenneth Sai's coffee shop in Malim Nawar for a break. 46.95km

Happily seated with Hanif, taking a hard-earned break at Sai's Shop

From Malim Nawar I broke away from Ganesan and Hanif to do a sprint towards Kampar. Reached West City and waited for them here. 53.35km 1353hr

1353hr Kampar West City 53.35km

At last, I reached home at about two o'clock with a very muddy bicycle after cycling a distance of 56.88km.

1410hr Home with lots of mud from the Kinta Riverbank 56.88km