Labrador Tunnels

Posted by oceanskies79 under Heritage Sites and Trails
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Entrance to one of the rooms of the casemate. Labrador Tunnels, Labrador Park.

When the hustle and bustle of city life starts to wear you out, take a trip to Labrador Park. You will find yourself not only to getting closer to Nature, but to the past too.

In March 2005, I visited the Labrador Tunnels located within the vicinity of Labrador Park.

For someone like myself who does not drive nor own a car, the most accessible and affordable way to get to Labrador Park is to take the bus-service number 408. The bus service shuttles between Harbour Front Interchange and Labrador Park. It operates on Saturdays, Sundays and Public Holidays, from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Now, please allow me to share with you my visit to the Labrador Tunnels close to a year ago:

I registered myself for the tour of the Labrador Tunnels. The tour started with the casemate. The casemate served as an ammunition store for the guns. The casemate had four rooms. One of the rooms held the entrance to a tunnel that led to underground storerooms. If I am not wrong, that room which led to the underground storerooms suffered bombings twice. Once by the Japanese soldiers and the other time by the departing British troops in an attempt to prevent their enemy, the Japanese, from getting the ammunition stored there.

That particular room of the casemate was preserved in the very way it was when it was first discovered after the World War II. Basically, most of the rubbles and debris were left untouched. A pathway was cleared of the debris so as to make it safe for visitors to walk through the tunnel, and that was all.

This was approximately how the underground tunnel looked like when it was rediscovered in year 2001.

After visiting the casemate, we were led to visit another tunnel which was a fair distance away from the casemate. This tunnel leads to another underground storeroom. The storeroom was constructed to serve the Gun Emplacement Three in Labrador Park. A gun emplacement is a platform specially prepared to support large heavy guns and artillery.

During the tour, I managed to grasp an appreciation of how a cartridge store room, a lighting room, and a shell lift area would look like. It was a rather fascinating experience for me.

Shell Lift Area. Here, the shells are lifted up by a mechanical pulley system (called a hoist) from this underground room to the gun emplacement above it.

After the tour of the Labrador Tunnels, I walked about the Labrador Park on my own. Labrador Park is generally a peaceful place to be in. Aside from a rich past of its own, Labrador Park has nice greenery, interesting rocky beaches and cool sea breezes to treat its visitors.

The aerial staircase of the Labrador Park. It gets one close to Nature.

Now that you have a glimpse of the Labrador Tunnels and the Labrador Park, why not plan to make a trip there?