By a city girl's standard, this part of Punggol is a "wilderness". Soft sand, wild flowers, trees standing barren admist the lalang fields, totally uninhabited... maybe not quite.
The HDB flats in the background are located within such proximity to my so-called "wilderness". I won't be surprised that very soon, the lalang fields will be replaced by residential skyscrappers and new inhabitants... children in their bicycles, domestic helpers chilling and chatting along the void deck, couple of eldely folks having a game of chess, footprints, vandalism... and all other signs of a human habitat.
Something like this.
We walked a long way and searched for quite some time before finding this metal bridge. It is worned out, broken, full of potholes... in fact, barely a bridge. But there is a certain charm about it. After returning home, I keep thinking and wonder for what purpose is a bridge there. It is erected over a tiny... I will call it, a stream and we also found that the other side is accessible from another road without the bridge. I have no clue how long the bridge has stood there and what was in the vicinity previously. They are all part of history now and unfortunately, lost to time.
We met a nice family who was fishing along the river opposite Coney Island. They told me that this place will be fenced up and closed to public by the end of the day. It didn't look to me like any major construction work is going to be carried out in the few days to follow. But development of this area in the very near future seems inevitable.
It is very sad that we are losing more and more of "nature" to "urbanisation". Even as it is today, this natural environment has not been well maintained. It could have been used by some as an illegal dumping field... we found old TV sets, furnitures and all kinds of human trash there.
Nevertheless, we were lucky to be there to see the last of this place and to have met a bunch of helpful and friendly people. Most of all, like my friend said, it was nice walk.
A punggol sunrise.
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