the Woodlands jetty

This is one ride that I'll remember for a very long time.

 

Not because of the accident that took place when we were cycling back- I'll write about that later- but because of the route, and the effort, that we took to get there.

 

I can't remember the last time I had such a poopy ride.

Funny thing is, we hadn't planned for it to be that way.

When we said we'd try biking to Woodlands Jetty, we'd mapped the route out such that we'd start from Serangoon Central, Upper Serangoon Road, Punggol Road, Punggol Jetty, Seletar North, Yishun Dam, Yishun, Sembawang Road, Gambas Avenue and then finally somewhere in Woodlands.

 

On Google Maps, it looked straightforward. 

 

It looked doable.

 

But Google Maps doesn't tell you traffic conditions or topography and you don't realize how challenging things get until you're there, and somehow that's how things turned out to be once we hit Punggol Road.

 

See, we hadn't expected that the whole road would be made of hills, and that for most part of the road, we'd be traveling upslope in 35 degree weather, battling the sun burning overhead, the traffic, the traffic lights , the heat, the humidity, and the buses.

 

Also, we hadn't expected that Punggol Road would suddenly shift from four lanes into two at Old Punggol Road near the St. Anne's church and that we'd find ourselves squeezed up a very steep slope with double decker buses on our left and traffic speeding up on our right.  

 

Neither did we expect that we'd find ourselves at Gerald Drive instead of Punggol Jetty, and that we'd have to use Ang Mo Kio Ave 5 and Lentor Avenue to get to Yishun instead of Seletar North and Yishun Dam.

 

It was all very unexpected, I tell you, and by the time we reached Yishun- with its pedestrians, its cars and its many, many shared bikes, we were sweltering, sunburnt and pooped.

 

Here my Co Rider and I stopped for Arnold's fried chicken (because if we're gonna huff and heff all the way up north from the east, we're going to d*** well eat a good piece of oily, fried chicken!) and during the meal, I was offered the choice of heading back via Mandai or going upwards to Woodlands Jetty.

I chose the latter.

 

Because we'd already come this far and it seemed a waste to give up now and make an about-turn.

 

So after dinner, after getting more iced water and working through two wet wipes, we made our way up to Woodlands Jetty.

 

Honestly, the route there, I don't really remember very well. (I was kind of following my Co-Rider most of the way.)

 

If I'm not wrong, we went by Yishun Ring Road, somewhere that passed by Khatib Camp and then we were on Sembawang Road where we turned into Gambas Avenue and then I think we rode by the 3M factory (near the road that turns into Canberra). After that we were on the road somewhere near the Woodlands Industrial Park E.

 

On this road we turned in, stopped for a while to watch the Indian workers play a friendly game of cricket, followed the road all the way till the end, made a left, and after that, found ourselves *finally* at the Woodlands Waterway Park.

 

Where we were greeted with a sight as beautiful as this.

Made it all worthwhile, no doubt about that.

Because it is not every day, and every place, where one can see the fiery towers of Senoko, the rich tree-lined shore of Admiralty and Marsiling, the causeway in the distance, the Woodlands Checkpoint, the lovely rippling waters of the Johor Straits, the seafood restaurant so reminiscent of seafood places in Muar and Kukup, and the skyline of Johor Bahru all bathed in tropical twilight.