Coonoor-Queen of Hills

Coonoor-Queen of Hills

Last weekend some of us, myself, Nick and Kate, decided to spend weekends in Coonoor/Ooty. We left Chennai on Thursday night by Nilgiri Express. Due to a little error I had booked tickets up to Coimbatore only. Actually one can take this train
all the way up to Mettupalayam. Anyway, we reached Coimbatore in the morning at
5. We took bus to Coonoor, three hour journey through Nilgiri hills, all the way up in the hills. We were positively looking forward to this trip and a quiet weekend away from the heat of Chennai. We parked ourselves in the hotel Vivek's Tourist Home, in the upper Cooonoor. We had breakfast and set ourself on a little trip. It was clear to us that we are not interested in merely sight-seeing, you know, traveling in bus trips all the day long and spending few minutes actually on the spot. On my suggestion we decided to go to Lam's rock walking. It's breathtaking and scenic walk through beautiful Nilgiris. To start with we first went to the Sim's park actually a botanical garden in Coonoor. Then we walked to Lam's rock, 7 km. All the way you come across huge trees and tea-plantation.

We spent some time there and watched the beautiful valley while sun was playing hide and seek. It was a bit of misty weather with a little shower in between. Then we thought of walking to Dolphin's nose and take the city bus back in the evening 5:30 (last bus is at 7). We walked up to a village and felt tired to walk further 5 km to the Dolphin's nose. We were about to ditch our plan and we got a jeep going to that place. Immediately we jumped in to it. We spent about half an hour there on the Dolphin's nose, enjoyed the scenery around which overlooks the Catherine waterfall. Now we had to catch the bus which one gets a bit up hill. The bus doesn't come all the way there. We started to run back, cutting across Tea-Gardens, all the way up hill. As soon as we arrived at the bus stand a passing by car offered us lift. We thanked them and gladly accepted the offer. After few minutes we saw the bus going to that place.

Next day, on Saturday we decided to go to Ooty and take a trip in the forest of Nilgiri. The most ironic thing is that if you mention the word Trekking, people give you nasty looks, as if they have never heard of the word. The Nilgiri hills are amazing place for trekking, hiking and even walks in forest and country side. But the travelers and visitors to Ooty and Coonoor, specially Indian visitors are quite infamous. They all belong to "honey-moon class" who just go for sight-seeing trips, leave a lot of litters around and do a bit of shouting and screaming. But don't be discouraged. In Ooty we contacted a guide, named Mike through lonely planet guide, and he let us see what is Ooty all about. Since we reached Ooty by noon time only, arriving there by the train, Nilgiri Passenger, starting form Coonoor at 10:30, we had only half day left to do a bit of walking in the country side and add to it the rain in the afternoon. What we saw in the afternoon was breathtaking beauty of Nilgiri forests not very far from Ooty, right there in the backyard, the hills overlooking the town. We visited a couple of lakes in the forest and were completely thrilled with the promises of Mike of a forest trip, camping and hiking in the deep forest. But that has to be at some other time as the rainy season and bad weather is not good for doing those stuff. By night we were back in Coonoor by bus which are in a planety from Ooty, every 15 minutes till 11 in the night.

On the third day, last day of our trip, we decided to go hiking on one of the nearest hills. Of course we hardly got any encouraging support from locals. We just decided that we will go on the top of one of the hills which is beside Sims' park. There seem to be half way a village and tea plantations. It took about one and half an hour to climb on that hill. There was a temple on the top of the hill. Along our climb we met many locals and inquired about how to reach on the top. On top we had a wonderful view of Coonoor. We were among clouds which were passing from one side of hill to the other side. It was just a awesome scene and the whole thing just so picturesque.

In the evening we took a bus back to Metuppalayam and caught or train back to the dusty, polluted, stinking city Chennai.


Here you can see the photographs of our trip.