About Ooty: Ooty also known as Udhagamandalam is the Queen of hill stations. It is the capital of Nilgiris district of Tamil Nadu and one of the most popular tourist resorts in India. Nilgiris means Blue Mountains. It is a land of picturesque picnic spots which used to be popular summer and weekend getaway for the Britishers during the colonial days. It is situated at an altitude of 2,240 meters above sea level. An added attraction for the tourists to Udhagamandalam is the mountain train journey on a ratchet and pinion track which commences from Kallar, near Mettupalayam and wends its way through many hair-raising curves and fearful tunnels and chugs along beside deep ravines full of verdant vegetation, gurgling streams and tea gardens.
Duration of the Trip: This was a 3 days and 4 night’s trip from Bangalore. We started on Thursday night and return back to Monday early morning. It you want you can make this a normal weekend i.e. 2 days and 3 nights’ trip as well.
Transportation: There are direct buses available from Bangalore to Ooty but very less in count. The other way to go is go by bus till Coonoor or Coimbatore and take a bus/ cab from there. If you wish to go by train you have to go till Coimbatore and from there you have to take a bus/ cab.
We booked our ticket for going from RedBus till Coimbatore Gandhinagar bus stop which costs near about Rs. 500/- per person. We started at 10:00PM and reached by morning 7:00 AM.
For coming back to Bangalore we booked our ticket from Coonoor to Bangalore from kpntravels which costs Rs. 550/- per person. It started at 9:30 PM and reached Bangalore at 4:30 AM next day.
Details of the Trip:
Day 1: After reaching to Coimbatore, he hired a cab to reach Coonoor which costs us Rs. 900/-. The view on the way is beautiful. It took near about 2:30 hours to reach Coonoor. On the way we had our breakfast in one local South Indian restaurant. That was not much big or something but the taste was really great. After reaching Coonoor, we booked a hotel called Venkateswara Lodge which is opposite to Coonoor railway station. It costs Rs. 450/- per day. This is the best budget hotel in Coonoor we saw.
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| Venkateswara Lodge |
After getting fresh we had our lunch in the vegetarian restaurant called Venky’s Café just below our hotel. We didn’t find any good non-vegetarian restaurant in Coonoor neither we found any good travel agency.
Then we went to Ooty by the train of Nilgiri Mountain Railways. There are two classes available in the train, First Class costs Rs. 78/- and Second Class costs Rs. 3/- (yes it is Three only). Though there is not much difference between the two classes but to avoid rush I will suggest you to book the first class ticket. It takes exactly 1 hr. to reach Ooty from Coonoor. There are five stations in between these two stations. They are Wellington, Aravankadu, Ketti, Lovedel and at last Udagamandalam (Ooty). Trains are not available always. There are particular timings for trains to Ooty from Coonoor.
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| Time tables of the trains for Coonoor to Ooty |
Our blue colored train was running through the hill’s way. The hills were covered by carpet of green tea gardens and at the down of the hills there were small villages. The journey was awesome. I can’t describe it in words you just have to go and experience it.
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| In front of Train |
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| Coonoor Railway Station from our Hotel |
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| Train taking a sharp turn |
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| picture taken from train |
After reaching to Ooty, we booked local site seeing package for next day from one of the Travel Agency, Royal Travels outside the station. There are several types of tour packages available. We booked for Ooty – Coonoor local sightseeing tour. Which cost us Rs 150/- per head.
As we don’t have much time to go anywhere that day, we preferred to go for some shopping. We hired an Auto from the railway station and went to local market. Homemade Chocolates, Eucalyptus oil, Cloves, Cinnamon, Bay Leaves, Nilgiri Tea are the main shopping attraction of Ooty. You can buy woolen goods also from there, they are good and cheap. We bought plenty of chocolates. I will suggest you not to buy the oils from market as there is a better place where you will get them best which I will tell you later. After doing some shopping again we return back to railway station and caught a train to return back to Coonoor.
Day 2: We started from Coonoor by 7:00 AM train and reached Ooty at 8:00 AM. We had our breakfast in a hotel near station and reached to Royal Travel office. They had arranged a Swaraj Mazda for 10 people group. The timing of the tour is 9:00 PM to 6:00 PM. During the day we have visited the famous places of Ooty and Coonoor.
Dodabetta Peak, which is the highest point in the district at a height of 2623m. One can see as far as the plains of Coimbatore and the Mysore plateau if the climate is clear. But it was our bad luck that the day was fully foggy hence we were not able to see.
The Botanical Garden is maintained by the Horticulture Department of the Government of Tamil Nadu and has a very wide variety of plants that include different types of roses, imported shrubs, rare flowering plants, eucalyptus trees, several old trees and even a fossilized tree trunk that is 20 million years old. There is also a beautiful Italian floral garden and for those who simply want to relax, there's always the green carpet of the well-maintained lawns.
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| Botanical Garden |
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| Lawn of garden |
The biggest attraction of Ooty is Boat House. An artificially created lake is being used for the permission of boating and fishing. For fishing you need have prior permission from Department of Fisheries. For boating you don’t need any permission. There are three types of boats available in Boat House i.e, Paddle Boat, Rowing Boat and Motor Boat.
Other than boating you will find toy train, different rides, shops and snacks bars. In package tour only 30 mins time is allotted to visit this place. But if you have time you can spend half a day in this park.
Mini Garden is garden near to boat house and a special attraction for kids.
Thread Garden is newest addition in Ooty. In the garden the flowers, trees, leaves, rocks, bridge, river and whatever are there, are made of thread. This is an outcome of 12 years dedicated work of more than 50 ladies using 6 crore meter of embroidery thread. No needles or machineries has been used for this purpose. This is the only garden which is made of thread across the globe. This effort nominated at Gunnies Book of World Record.
If you want you can bring souvenir of this garden. We bought one sample thread plant from there .
Valley View Point is a view point on the way to Coonoor from where you can get a full view of the local valley. This is just splendid. There are 21 villages in that valley. This is the only point from where you can get this complete view. Hindi Movie lovers, you can see the place where Sajan movie has been shoot from this view point.
Another interesting thing on the way to coonoor is, Cantonment of Wellington. Thought it is not allowed for the travel agency vehicle to stop here or taking photographs of the places inside this cantonment but you will be able to see some famous places while passing. One of them is Second World War Memorial Pillar which was built in memory of Second World War.
Wellington Golf Course is another popular place in Cantonment of Wellington. In the midst of the exotic landscape, the touch of normalcy surrounded with the unusual location makes golfing at Wellington's an attractive possibility for many people. This golf course is especially popular with film crews who film in the area. During the filming of a movie, the relaxing motion necessary for golf can counteract the stress that occurs in the filmmaking process. No wonder Wellington's Golf Course is a popular place to visit. Few songs of the movie Raja Hindustani has been shoot in this place.
After crossing this cantonment the first place which will come is Lamb's rock, an excellent picnic spot near Coonoor. It was named after the man Captain Lamb who tried in earnest to open a path to that particular point. With such a view, no wonder this man put forth such a valiant effort to reach the point. The rock is a jagged cliff that drops down several hundred feet to the lush jungle below. On the right hand is the Hulical ravine. It is possible to see the Coonoor stream some 5000 feet below. This vantage point also provides you with an excellent view of the Coimbatore plains.
Lady Canning's Seat is 8kms from Coonoor, alongside the road to Lamb’s Rock; it is the best point in the heart of the woods. It has a panoramic view of tea estates, Lamb’s Rock and even Mettupalayam is visible at a distance. Named after Lady Canning, as she liked this place.But as I already told it was a foggy day, we were not able to take any snap for these places.
Catherine Falls, also known as ‘St. Catherine's Falls’, is located in the area that surrounds Coonoor. This beautiful waterfall falls from an impressive 250 feet. It can clearly been seen from the top of Dolphin's Nose if seeing the entire waterfall as one total impression is what you are looking for.
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| Catherine Falls |
Dolphin's Nose is an enormous rock formation that is entirely unique. The protruding rock formation looks exactly like what it is named after, a dolphin's nose. There are gigantic ravines found both to the left and right of Dolphin's Nose. In one of the ravine's you can clearly see the awe inspiring Catherine Falls with its continuing stream several thousand meters below. In the other ravine, you can spot where the Coonoor stream meets the Kotagiri stream. Both streams that are contained within these two ravines ultimately feed the Bhavani River which is located a relatively short distance away opposite of the Dolphin's Nose.
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| One side view from Dolphin's Nose |
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| View of the tribal village from Dolphin's Nose |
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| Dolphin's Nose |
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| Catherine Falls from Dolphin's Nose |
For me the most attractive place is Coonoor Tea Estate. The famous Nilgiri tea plantation is done mostly in this area.
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| Way to Coonoor Tea Estate |
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| Mayur Tea Estate |
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| Mayur Tea Estate |
Other than tea, this area is famous for eucalyptus oil, Citridora Oil, Almond Oil, Lemon Grass oil, Olive Oil, Heena Oil and Nilgiri spices. Our travel guide took us to Mayur Tea Estate which belongs to Mayur Malwani, husband of famous actress Mumtaz. More than 25,000 acres of the tea estate belongs to him. There is a shop in is tea estate where we tasted chocolate tea which I just loved.
From this shop you can buy tea, oils spices and other Nilgiri special stuffs.
Sim’s Park is constructed and named after J. D. Sim, the secretary of the Madras Club in 1874.It is spread over an area of about 12-hectare and this garden is built following the Japanese style. It has a huge collection of about 1,000 plant species. It is mainly noted for its annual fruit and vegetable show held in May.
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| Entrance of Sim's Park |
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| Inside Sim's Park |
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| Inside Sim's Park |
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| Waiting room Inside Sim's Park |
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| Flower made of plants.This is view of 1 petal |
Day 3 : In the morning again we came to Ooty. We booked an indica from outside the station for the trip to Pykara which costs us Rs. 800/-.This trip is also called ‘Filmi Chakkar’ as many of the films has been shoot in this places.
On the way we have seen the typical house and there temple of Todas, the local tribal of Nilgiris.
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| White one is house of Thodas |
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| The brown structure in far is temple of Thodas |
Other things on the way are Gimkhana club, Golf course which were not open to normal visitor. One outside view is available of these places.
Pykara is the largest river in the Nilgiris District. It is located about 20 kms from Ooty on the Ooty-Mysore road, and is considered very sacred by the Todas.
It gets down majestically in a series of cascades and the last two falls of 55 meters and 61 meters are known as Pykara Falls.
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| Paykara Falls |
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| Pykara Falls |
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| Pykara Falls |
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| Pykara Boat House |
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| Pykara Boat House from boat |
There is a dam called Pykara Dam” which is the major source of electricity of state. But it is not allowed to go inside the dam or take any photographs of the dam.
One more dam in the in the way called Kamraj Sagar Dam, this is the place where the some part of the movie Roja has been shoot.
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| Kamraj Sagar Bridge |
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| Pine Forest |
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| Pine Forest |
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| River in Pine Fores |
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| Fresh Honey |
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| Pei Mund |
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| Pei Mund |
And this was the last spot for our trip. We came back to Ooty and had our lunch and started for Coonoor. We had our bus at night 9:30 PM from Coonoor.
Note: Few things I would like to share with the readers of this blog to make theme not suffered the problem we have faced during the trip:
1. We didn’t get any hotels in Ooty as that was a national holiday in Friday and it was a long weekend, it was too much rush over there. So I would suggest you to book any hotel priory to avoid going and coming Ooty from Coonoor every day.
2. If you are traveling by bus, better go by KPN buses than redbus ones. As service of KPN is much better. Red bus will give u time at 9:30PM and will start by 11:00 PM.
Disclaimer: We went for this trip on Sept'2010. There are chances of the price and timings getting changed. Please check with hotel,bus services and travel agent about current timings and rates.
I have tried to provide as much as details is possible for the trip. For any further clarification please feel free to contact me @ dutshilpi@gmail.com. You can also refer to Ooty official website:
http://www.ooty.com/