Retirement or Sabbatical?

11 August 2019

Created this blog to help plan and document my 1st year of retirement.

I ‘officially’ retired on 31 July 2019 some 3 months shy of 58th birthday. After nearly 30 years of working, I thought it is time to step back from corporate life and look at what is there for my next chapter.

One of the projects I plan to embark on is to do a lot of nature walks and hikes.

For the past couple of days, I started on this venture to explore some of the walks in nature Parks Singapore.

I have previously done the Mt Faber to Treetop walk, and the MacRitchie Reserve walk. So on Friday 9 August (Singapore National Day) I wandered to the far flung North Eastern corridor of Singapore – Punggol Waterway. It is a newly created boardwalk all the way to Serangoon dam and then to Coney Island.

Since I don’t have a car, I have to rely on public transport which commenced at my place just before 6am. First part of the journey was bus to Paya Lebar MRT, then Circle Line to Serangoon MRT (4 stops), change to the North East Line to Punggol MRT. Then there is a short walk to the Punggol PCN which trails along the river all the way to Sunrise Bridge which overlooks the dam, and where one can nice picture of the Sunrise if one is early enough. On the other side of the Sunrise Bridge is a trail that leads to one end of Coney Island. There is a good trail (quite stony though) that takes you to the other end of Coney Island where one exits and rejoin the Punggol PCN back to Punggol MRT.

With some slight detours, the whole route is a decent 12km. There are plenty walkers, runners and cyclists.

A good way to spend 2 hours among nature, albeit part of the trail is man made.

Here are some photos taken on the walk.