Dairy Farm Nature Park

Always keen to explore new outdoor places in Singapore friends and I recently visited the Dairy Farm Nature Park and were curious as to how it got it's name, had there been a diary here once with real live cows!

  We first made a slight detour to visit a nearby disused quarry, now filled with water and fish and beautiful kingfishers and dragon flies flitting above

 It was very hot by the quarry with no protection from the sun so we were pleased to head back down the track and into the more shady jungle where we soon found the start of the Wallace trail

 we were delighted to be walking on "mud" again, something there is little opportunity to do in Singapore. 

Sadly the trail is not very long so we were soon back on a paved track. This led to what is now the Wallace Education Centre but in the 1930's had been a cowshed.  

 Inside there was an explanation as to who Wallace was. Alfred Russell Wallace was a contemporary of Charles Darwin and also came up with the idea of evolution by natural selection. He sent a letter to Darwin about his theory and this prompted Darwin into publishing his theory of natural selection, Darwin did however acknowledge Wallace's contribution. Wallace was a great naturalist and stopped over in Singapore many times and collected over 700 species of beetles in the Dairy Farm area.

There was also an exhibition about the usage of this area over the years starting with the 1800's when the surrounding jungle area had been cleared for gambier and pepper plantations. The gambier crop was used for tanning leather and dyeing. Then in the 1930 the world's first tropical dairy farm was established here with 24 Friesian cows imported from Holland and Australia. 

 The farm was apparently very successful and for many years produced high quality milk but it ceased operation in the 1970's and the land was then used for vegetable farming. This must have also come to an end some years ago as we could only see evidence of jungle in the area now. 

We were amused to see a plastic cow outside the 'cowshed' and tried hard to imagine a field full of cows on the land in front of us.

 I think this might have been the water trough for the cows, now filled with flowers

 It was fascinating to visit Dairy Farm Nature Park, so much of Singapore is built upon nowadays with 4 or 6 lane roads criss crossing the island so it is lovely to see glimpses of what had once been a much more rural and quieter place.