Wallace Trail

The wind was taken out of our sails earlier in the week when we opened a letter explaining that the old Paya Lebar Police Camp on the corner of Serangoon Rd is going to be pulled down and replaced with a condo comprising seven 13-storey blocks. We will no doubt lose the current outlook of huge leafy mahogany trees shading the red terracotta tile roof of the old colonial style buildings below.  Site clearance will begin in the next few months. Progress.

Eric's camera continued to play up so he took it back to Canon at Harbourfront on Thursday morning, only to discover they had moved. On Friday we took the new blue line from Botanic Gardens to Hillview so we could walk the Wallace Trail in the Dairy Farm Nature Reserve. The trail is named after Alfred Wallace to honour his contributions to natural science. A contemporary of Charles Darwin, Wallace is the other "father" behind the theory of evolution, in fact they collaborated on the idea of natural selection and presented their findings jointly. Darwin, a well off scholar from Cambridge, came to his conclusions about the biodiversity of nature and its evolutionary reasons, based mostly on his research in the Galapagos islands. He published first and is more widely known. Wallace (right) and Darwin (left), two men with the same idea.

In 1854, Wallace stayed in the vicinity of the Dairy Farm site, using it as a base between more than 50 forays into Indonesia, Malaya and Papua New Guinea, during his long stint in Southeast Asia. He collected many species of beetles and birds at the Dairy Farm site for sale to museums and rich patrons back in Britain which funded his trips. I read his book, 'The Malay Archipelago' earlier and was amazed at this self taught naturalist who left Britain on a steamship, bound for the Far East. During the 8 years he was away, he and his assistants collected over 125,000 specimens of mammals, birds and insects, of which over 1,000 species were unknown to man at the time. It was he who noted the boundary that runs between Australia and the Asian islands and mainland. 

It marks the point where there is a difference in species on either side. To the west of the line, all of the species are similar or derived from species that are found on the Asian mainland. To the east of the line, there are many species that are of Australian descent. Along the line is a mix of the two and many species are hybrids. At some point in the past, Asia and Australia were joined together in one giant land mass. During this period, species were free to move about on both continents and could easily stay one species as they mated and produced offspring. However, once continental drift and plate tectonics pulled the lands apart, the large amount of water that ended up separating them drove evolution in different directions for the species making them unique to either continent after a long period of time had passed.  Even then Wallace was concerned about the disappearing forests in Singapore, natural habitats that were being cleared to make way for plantations. He made a strong case for conservation when he wrote in an 1863 letter, “Future ages will certainly look back upon us as a people so immersed in the pursuit of wealth as to be blind to higher considerations. They will charge us with having culpably allowed the destruction of some of those records of Creation which we had it in our power to preserve.” A man of great foresight. 

Sheds from the original dairy farm have been converted into the Wallace Education Centre, a study hub for schools but also open to the public. We caught the train to One North and found Canon in their new location, then came home and got ready for work. A big day.

On Sunday night we celebrated Peter's birthday at Roosevelt's in Outram Park. He has just returned from a week in Sri Lanka where he caught up with the family in Galle he has been sponsoring since the tsunami. It was lovely to hear updates and see pictures of them all. Our next plan is to get a sewing machine over to them, the tuk tuk business is not flourishing. Peter had the week off school for Chinese New Year, no such luck for the tuition centres. Most of our students are beaming and counting their red packets! Eric spent some time adapting the words to Slippin' Away for a quick presentation.






The walk this week was scheduled for Tuesday again so another sleep-in. This is a new habit that will be hard to break, actually our 4th Monday morning in a row without a group walk. Eric spent a good part of the morning at the dentist, a long overdue appointment and I updated the blog. In the evening we went to see The Dressmaker, a film set in early 1950's Australia. We loved the way it incorporated so many different stories and personalities and moved from drama, to comedy, to pathos and back.  The setting was completely unrealistic so you could just sit back and enjoy it. The theatre once again was quite full and the humour definitely translated across the other cultures in the room. After the film we went to Jamie's in Orchard Rd for dinner but when a pizza and one glass of wine costs about $60, we don't think we will be venturing back soon. Mind you, the pizza was enormous for one person.

Tuesday morning saw the walkers at One North where we met up before walking to Solaris, the building I have featured on here before with the external spiral green walkway all the way up to the roof garden. Fortunately Eric's camera was ready for collection too so we were able to kill two birds with one stone. We were not given prior access to walk the green walkway which hugs the building all the way to the roof, but we did have access to the rooftop for great views of One North's modern architecture and then to the fourth floor garden overlooking One North Park. Below is the rooftop garden (top left) and beside that a view of Mediaopolis where the national tv and film industry operate.

From there we walked back to Buona Vista and through the park to Wessex estate. The walk incorporated a quick stretch of the old rail trail and then a few loops through the colonial black and white buildings before having lunch at Coldbar. Steve managed to join us there. Can you imagine that, he only lives a few blocks from here. Eric was the only male walker today.

In the early evening we met up with others at Gluttons Corner on the esplanade. The sun dropping cast a beautiful light on the Marina Bay Sands building. We went to see the Dianna Krall Wallflower World Tour Concert which we all really enjoyed. She filled her set with old favourites from Irving Berlin to Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan. As she says, she loves these songs because they are timeless. Her band were all brilliant too. What a way to start the new week.