Fort Canning Park, a Historical Icon

A particular open-air spiral staircase location encased by lush green leafy top has been making its round as an Instagram hotspot. This photogenic site was never meant to be a point of attraction of the park, until local Instagrammers discovered it. Now, more than half of visitors to Fort Canning Park will probably invariably end up looking for the spiral staircase. Talk about the impact of influencers.

Fort Canning Park isn’t a park that we frequent, hence we had no idea where the spiral staircase is located despite researching online. Eventually we ended up walking the whole length of Fort Canning Park before realising that we had passed and completely missed it because Google Maps was slow in updating our position (and because I was navigating haha). We had to retrace our steps slowly in part to allow the app to update, and in part to allow the girls more time to take in the scents along the trail.

How to Get to Fort Canning Park Spiral Staircase if You Drive:

1. The spiral staircase is denoted by Fort Canning Park Tree Tunnel in the Google Map attached above. If you drive, it is very near to the parking gantry (on your left).
2. Fort Canning Car Park C in front of Hotel Fort Canning is the nearest car park to the spiral staircase. If you intention is also to explore the park, Car Parks A & B are good alternatives.

When we finally found the spiral staircase, there was a queue! On a Monday afternoon! As Instagram Influencers wannabe, I think we have completely failed. How on earth did they take such nice pictures? Then again, we have not really seen good pictures taken with large furkids.

We waited till everyone in the queue has cleared before we attempted to take some pictures. There was no way the mister could carry both the furkids at the same time and take care of their safety, so he carried them one by one while I stayed at the foot to take pictures. It was hilarious! 😆

We daren’t take too long as a queue was again forming behind me. As it turned out, this picture above ended up being our best attempt. Without showing any of the tree canopy. We laughed at what a failure we were. 😳

After a lacklustre attempt at becoming Instagram stars, we headed back to the car at a leisure pace. Which involved a long flight of steps in the sun…

And at sighting a bench, the girls immediately jumped up without much coaxing, just to rest a bit in the shade. We let them be, to let them cool down a bit. Heatstroke in dogs is a very real problem that is not taken too seriously here in Singapore, but recently a dog here passed away from heatstroke, simply by walking in a park. It really hit home, so we were careful not to let that happen.

After Belle and Cassie have rested sufficiently, we headed back to the car. And this was how Cassie’s 4th birthday excursion went.

On hindsight, we didn’t explore much of Fort Canning Park, including all the historic landmarks found in the park. It necessitated another visit, but the next round, we vow not to be obsessed over the spiral staircase.