I feel very lucky to live a hop, skip and a jump away from the Green Corridor/Old Railway Track/Rail Corridor…whatever you want to call it.

Each and every time I am here, I feel as if I have walked into the pages of Alice in Wonderland and fallen down a rabbit hole: acres of unmanicured, relatively untouched green space is not what you expect to find when you live in suburbia, as I do, somewhere just off Sixth Avenue.

If it has made a difference to me, it has had even more of an impact on Poppy Dog…

and we head here twice a week at least, often in the very good company of Kaya (as in toast) and her owner:

There is an exhibition happening at the moment where people can put forward ideas for what this space should be used for but I think it’s already pretty clear what it’s perfect for: dog walks, walks generally, cycling and running.

It stretches for a whopping 25 km, from the causeway in the north to Tanjong Pagar in the south. If you really want to stretch your city legs, it’s nice to know it’s utterly possible.

There are masses of different access points, my nearest is not the one I favour and I call it the goat track:

It’s down the side of the petrol station, next to Jelita Cold Storage and it really does look like goats have been up and down it, treading a neat, narrow, very steep path. There’s also rather a stinky strip of water at the bottom that Kaya routinely insists on wallowing in.

The end result: (and yes, that is mud – not shadow – on her legs and tummy)

Instead I much prefer to join the Corridor just off Old Holland Road, where Greenleaf Walk and Greenleaf View merge and where it is flat and easy to walk. It is a particularly useful entry point if you have small people with bikes in tow as it mitigates any strenuous lugging (you know me, always keen on avoiding any unnecessary exercise!).

My favorite sites as I stroll along?

Proper jungle views are right up there at the very top of the list:

as well as Ironing Board Bridge which always makes me smile (I love to think that this might be the only ironing board in the whole world that has managed to break free from its original intended purpose).

I also love seeing the old Bukit Timah station sign with remnants of the track:

as well as the rail bridge that crosses Bukit Timah and Dunearn just by Rife Range Road:

Don’t forget to mozzie-up, wear a good slathering of suncream and bring a water bottle: it is, after all, a jungle out there. On my twice weekly walks here, I only seem capable of remembering one of these three things. I will get there eventually, I hope.

End result? Owners and dogs that both look like this:

with faces to match these:

…my extremely high powered running shoes, given to me by the lovely chaps over at World of Sports. I am a rather reluctant runner and have – so far – only used them for walking and dog chasing. I am hoping for a sporting transformation to take place any day now.

The land is the old Malaysia railway track – the Keretapi Tanah Melayu. Malaysia returned the land to Singapore in 2010 and the sleepers were removed. The remaining trackbed and its adjacent buffer of grass and scrub has left a clay walking/cycling trail.

For more info and to lend support to the movement of an unmanicured green corridor, i.e. as is, click here.