Of pedals, butter lobsters and heat.

I haven’t been writing much about cycling so thought I’d better correct that, especially since the other topics have now been migrated to my other blog, Amarajothy.blogspot.com.
I’d seen the sign for ‘Pengerang’ at the Changi Ferry Terminal before but had no idea where it was until Johann enlightened us. A town on the south-eastern end of Johor, it is about an hour’s ferry ride from Changi and a nice place to cycle. Not to mention gorge on seafood…


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Johann, Mei and I had tried to go once, but when we turned up at the Changi Ferry Terminal early one Saturday morning, we found the queue was a long one that was expected to take 3 hours to clear so we gave up and went cycling along the East Coast instead.
A few weeks later, Mei and I were joined by Mei’s sister, Wei Yen, and her husband, Jeff. We turned up very early and this time were told we could expect to leave SIngapore around 9:30 which wasn’t too bad. Mei was prepared with a long-sleeved top and Wei Yen had a big hat which, as we discovered later, gave good protection but had a huge propensity to be whipped off by the wind.
We’d arranged for two mountain bikes for Jeff and Wei Yen through Tristan Group (http://www.tristangroup.com/) and their guy in Johor said he’d pick us up from the Ferry Terminal and bring us to where the bikes were. Tristan Group runs Tristan Park which has a dirt biking course and you can presumably have a great time roaring around on dirt bikes, quads and so on.
The boat ride took the best part of 45 minutes I think and on the way we saw a set of huge steel walls. They’re for land reclamation works and perhaps one day we will see Pulau Tekong joined to the mainland, for these areas were very expansive indeed.


Pictures: Part 1

Pictures part 2

The ride to Sg Rengit town was flat and got increasingly hotter. We chose a restaurant that was not frequented by Singaporeans and I think we might just have made the wrong choice. The food was pretty good, but I suspect the prices were less so.

We had Butter Lobster, baby Squids and more. Quite yummy I must say.

We hung around a little, but were mindful of the ferry time - we had been told to get back by 4pm and as Jeff and Wei Yen were not quick cyclists, we needed to set off back early.

A few km out of Sg Rengit and poor Mei couldn’t take the heat nor her increasingly bad neck (she has a history of neck problems partly from her work) and she had to stop and gave up her lunch by the road side.

We called Tristan Park who sent someone along in a van which he struggled to put Mei’s and Wei Yen’s bikes in. Jeff opted to ride back with me. I had planned to do a very quick ride but eventually ended up going slow so as not to leave Jeff behind.

Considering their lack of cycling, they acquitted themselves rather well, and despite poor Mei being unwell, I think we will certainly consider the ride again.