The sun rises in Singapore’s north

A collection of 51 photographs taken at sunrise that show that the north may have some of the best spots in Singapore to greet the new day.

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Sunrise, Selat Tebrau (Straits of Johor), 6.54 am, 16 April 2016.

Sunrise over Beaulieu Jetty, 6.41am, 7 May 2016.

Through the trees at Gambas Avenue, 7.08 am, 18 February 2012.

Greeting the new day, Sembawang Park, 17 April 2016.

Silhouettes at Kampong Wak Hassan, 6.35 am, 25 May 2014.

The angry sky over Beaulieu Jetty, 6.55 am, 16 April 2016.

Sunrise, through the incoming Sumatras, 6.30 am, 28 May 2016.

Colours of the forgotten shore, 6.47 am, 24 July 2013.

A sunrise through the storm, 7.09 am, 9 June 2013.

Solitude, Kampong Wak Hassan, 22 May 2013.

The rising sun over the strait, 7.11 am, 30 March 2013.

Over the strait, 6.41am, Christmas Day 2014.

Colours of the morning, Lower Seletar Reservoir, 6.34 am, 18 December 2013.

Colours of the morning, Kampong Tengah, 6.55 am 30 March 2013.

Rising of the sun, the straits, 7.00 am, 31 May 2013.

Colours after the storm, 6.43 am, 9 October 2013.

Light through the darkness, 7.03 am, 18 August 2013.

The early harvest, 6.47 am, 2 May 2013.

The seawall, 7.02 am, 2 February 2013.

The rising sun over Pasir Gudang, 6.58 am, 21 November 2013.

Light rays, 6.50 am, 24 June 2012.

Dark and light, 6.45 am, 7 June 2014.

Walking on water, 6.44 am, 14 June 2014.

First light, the forgotten shore, 6.25 am, 15 June 2014.

Red clouds over the straits, 6.55 am, 22 June 2012.

The rising sun through the haze, 7.09am, 21 June 2012.

Morning glow, 7.19 am, 22 December 2012.

Sunrise over Mandai, 6.51 am, 3 October 2013.

Colours of the new day, 6.54 am, 5 June 2014.

The bench, 6.45 am, 7 June 2014.

The bench, 6.31 am, 8 June 2014.

The incoming tide, 7.14 am, 14 June 2014.

Happy campers at sunrise, 6.45 am, 19 June 2014.

A pastel shaded morning, 6.22 am, 31 May 2014.

The cyclist, 6.38 am, 30 May 2015.

The fisherman, 6.36 am, 5 June 2015.

The finger pier, Sembawang Shipyard, 6.41am, 9 June 2015.

Pretty in pink, 6.22am, 1 June 2015.

On the jetty, 6.52 am, 28 February 2015.

The beach, 6.22 am, 28 March 2015.

Tossing the trap, 7.02 am, 1 March 2015.

The last trees of the Sungei Seletar mangrove forest, 7.06 am, 26 May 2016.

Dreamy morning, 6.39 am, 24 November 2014.

Three’s company, 6.36 am, 13 November 2014.

The sun rises on a changing landscape, 6.52 am, 30 October 2014.

The new world, 6.55 am, 21 November 2014.

Bubu man, 6.49 am, 13 November 2014.

The rising sun, 6.50 am, 24 November 2014.

Play, 6.53 am, 24 November 2014.

Under the clouds, 22 November 2013.

Over the last forested hill, 9 July 2016, 6.24 am.

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Light after Dark (The lookout point)

A view from the lookout point along one of the more scenic roads in Singapore, Mandai Road at 7.43 pm on 4 August 2013. The view is one in which the foreground is partially illuminated by the street lamps, with the rest of what’s in the picture, lit by ambient light, captured through a fairly long exposure. The lookout point, provides some picturesque views of Upper Seletar Reservoir, and is one of my favourite scenic spots in SIngapore, having first taken in the views at the end of the 1960s.

Light after dark (Upper Seletar Reservoir)

Light after dark at 7.44 and 7.50 pm on 7 July 2013 taken at Upper Seletar Reservoir.

Monoscapes: The High Dam

A mist shrouded scene in northern Singapore at 7.11 am on 16 April 2013, taken by the water’s edge. The body of water is Upper Seletar Reservoir created by the construction of a dam (seen running across the photograph) across the Seletar Valley.

The origins of the reservoir can be traced to an initial attempt to build one in the 1920s which was abandoned when it became possible to pipe over water from the south of Johor with the completion of the Causeway. What came out of that was its use as a temporary source of water. In 1940, the reservoir was expanded and a permanent reservoir.

The huge and very picturesque body of water we see today, is the result of an expansion which took place in the late 1960s during which its capacity was expanded some 35 times. This required that the the dam across the Seletar Valley be enlarged.  The dam, referred to in its early years as the Seletar High Dam, is seen running across the photograph. The expansion of the reservoir also meant that Mandai Road had to be re-routed to skirt around the expanded reservoir.

More information on the dam and the reservoir can be found on a previous post:  A face that I still see.

The sun sets on a Singapore we want only to forget

The Singapore of my wonderful childhood, was one that was very different to the one I now find myself waking up to. It was one where we could find pleasure not in the clutter of the pompous paraphernalia we now seek to embrace, but in a simplicity we can no longer find beauty in. It was a world of places marked not by the cold hard stare of concrete, glass and steel that had rendered them faceless, but one where escapes could be found in the unique charms of places that even today, we seek to forget.

Twilight in a world we seem to want to forget.

Two December’s Sunrises

This year’s North-East Monsoons has brought us lots of rain, so much so that the sky at dawn has more often than not been covered in a pall of grey cloud with spectacular shows of colour at sunrise being very much a rarity this month. The pall did seem to lift the last two mornings which did result with two very different and unusual celebrations of the new day:

6.46 am , 19 Dec 2012, Kampong Wak Hassan.

7.03 am 20 December 2012, Upper Seletar Reservoir.

Colours on a Sunday evening

The colours of the fading of day to night seen at a spot that I consider to be one of the more scenic places in Singapore and a place that I often find an escape in.

A face that I still see

One of my favourite roads to take a journey on in Singapore is a stretch of Mandai Road that has got to be one of the more gorgeous drives in Singapore. It is a stretch that takes you past an area that is reminiscent of an older world at its junction with Sembawang road, around a bend where the road starts to rise northwards to an area where a short stretch of it runs along a body of water that in reflecting the colours of the setting sun takes on the appearance of a magical world. It is a drive I have enjoyed for four decades now – my first encounters with the stretch dating back to the end of the 1960s when the road was diverted around what had been a newly expanded body of water – what then was Seletar Reservoir (now Upper Seletar Reservoir). Those first encounters had been ones that would have involved a visit to the area around the large dam that contributed to the reservoir’s expansion – then a manicured area that offered some wonderful views of the reservoir not just from the top of the 20 metre high dam, but also the panorama one got of it from the top of a newly constructed lookout tower which still stands today.

The lookout tower at what is today Upper Seletar Reservoir Park.

The area which later was developed into a park and the expanded reservoir, was opened by HRH Princess Alexandra in August 1969. The work to expand of the capacity reservoir which traces it origins back to the 1920s, resulted in an increase in its capacity from a previous expansion in 1940 by some 35 times, giving the northern fringe of Singapore’s Central Catchment Reserve a large and very picturesque body of water. This was made possible by the erection of a larger dam across the Seletar valley which required a part of Mandai Road to be diverted. The reservoir started its life as a temporary source of water supply which was developed out of an abandoned effort in the 1920s to build a third impounding reservoir on the island. Work on that was halted when it became apparent that it was feasible to draw on the abundant sources of water across the Straits in Southern Johor with pipelines to feed much-needed resource integrated into the construction of the Causeway. It was in 1940 that the reservoir was made a permanent one having its capacity expanded to feed the island’s growing population.

The expansion was made possible by constructing a larger dam across the Seletar valley.

The expansion of the reservoir in 1969 increased the capacity of Seletar Reservoir by some 35 times.

The work which commenced in 1967 to expand the reservoir, also allowed its position on the northern fringe the Central Catchment Reserve to be exploited to provide a recreational area around it with access to large parts of it possible by road. Besides the park with its now iconic tower that was constructed, plans were also drawn up to use an area to the north-west of the reservoir for a zoological gardens what is today the highly acclaimed Singapore Zoo.

Upper Seletar Reservoir seen here along Mandai Road is one of the more scenic areas of Singapore takes on a magical glow during the sunset.

The setting of the sun over Upper Seletar Reservoir.

It is for the climbs up the lookout tower that I would look forward most to on my early visits to the area, my first visit being in October 1969 on the evidence of photographs that I have taken of my sister and me. It wasn’t however only the tower that occupied me during my visits to the park – the slope of the dam was a constant source of delight with the grasshoppers that seemed to thrive in the grass that lined the slope. The slope – or rather the road that ran down from the top of the dam where the tower is along the slop of the dam was also where I once, in the foolishness of youth, responded to a dare to go down the road on my roller-skates. Finding myself gaining momentum after setting off, it was probably fortunate that I decided not to go through with the dare and managed to pull out of it by turning into a turn-off not far from the top of the slope. Sliding across the rough surface as I lost my balance in turning off at speed, I was bloodied and bruised with abrasions that ran down the entire length of my right leg and a little embarrassed, but quite thankful that I had decided not to go through with the dare.

Adventures of a five-year-old around the lookout tower at Seletar Reservoir (now Upper Seletar Reservoir) Park not long after it first opened in 1969.

The road down from the top of the dam. I made an attempt to roller-skate down the road (which then did not have the gate we now see across it). I managed to turn at a turn-off to the car park (seen just beyond the gate).

The park today is one that I still frequent, not so much for the tower which does still somehow fascinate me, but for the escape it offers from the concrete world that I find myself now surrounded by. And, in those escapes that I take, it is comforting to find that in a Singapore where the relentless winds of change have rendered many places of my childhood for which I had a fondness for unrecognisable, the area beneath the changes it has seen in the four decades that have passed, is a face from that world that I still am able to see.