Ooty trip

Team : Anukriti, Deekshith, Deepti, Harshita, Laxmi, Narendra, Niranjan, Pragya

Route : Bangalore --> Ramanagar --> Mysore--> Gundlupet --> Bandipura --> Gudalur-->Ooty

Distance : 328 km

Transport : Tempo traveler

After my last trip to Ramanagar, I decided to take a break and wait for summer season to end, to explore further. Suddenly I received a message from my friend saying that "We are planning for Ooty trip..". Well, Ooty is one of the coolest place to hangout in the summer season, without thinking much I replied "Sure, I am ready to join". As we were already tired of Bangalore's hot weather, we then decided to travel in the very next weekend to enjoy Ooty's cool weather and its natural beauty.

This time I took the responsibility of preparing the itinerary for the trip. With only 5 days left, finalizing the itinerary was not an easy task at all. Fortunately, I was able to get good trip advise from my roommate friend Einsteen who had stayed in Ooty, during his 6 years study in the past. He gave me the entire picture of places to visit in and around Ooty town. I was inclined towards covering as many places as we can, in our two days trip to Ooty. So everyday, after coming back from my office, I used to discuss with my friend and add/modify the plan to cover the best of best places in our two day trip. After deep planning, the final itinerary looked as follows.

Final Itinerary - Jam-packed and hectic 

We started our journey on 8th April at 12:30AM from Kadubeesanahalli, Bangalore. With one short tea break at Ramanagara, we headed to Bandipura.

In order to protect the forest wildlife at night, the entry of vehicles through the forest is banned from night 9PM to morning 6AM. We had already taken care of this in our plan and reached Bandipura forest checkpoint at 5:15AM.

Waiting at Bandipura forest checkpoint for the gate to open

Exactly at 6:00AM the gate was opened and we headed to visit the first place of the day, The Bandipura National park.

Bandipura national park :

Bandipura park

The Bandipura national park is around 4km from the forest gate. We had already booked our Safari tickets in advance at www.bandipurtigerreserve.in. We started our safari in the very first safari bus at 6:30AM. The Safari bus had a huge glass windows giving us enough room to look around for wild animals during the travel.

Bandipura Safari bus

View of sunrise during the Safari

The mud route inside the forest

I was very much excited, as it was my first Safari at Bandipura forest. Our entire team were in search of Tiger, as Bandipura is famous to watch out for Tigers during the Safari. Unfortunately we couldn't find any Tiger during the Safari. But many a times we were able to see herd of deer and peacock.

Deer

Peacock

It was a great experience driving through the beautiful winding roads inside the national park. It took almost 1.5 hrs and we completed our safari ride at 8:00 am. 

Atleast found pic of Tiger in the Bus

After having breakfast in a nearby hotel, we headed to Ooty. 7km away from Bandipura national park we came across another forest check post at Mudumalai, the border of Karnataka and Tamilnadu state. We came across a big post of ‘Thank You. Visit Again’ board by Karnataka state bidding us goodbye, while something written in Tamil Language was conveying us "Welcome to Tamilnadu state" .

Here the vehicles are stopped and checked for details (like travel itinerary, vehicle credentials etc). We were charged 1500 bucks to cross the border.

Mudumalai forest checkpost

Could be poster on save Tiger 

After crossing the border we headed to visit the first hill station of the trip, Needle rock view point.

On the way to Ooty via Gudalur

Needle rock view point :

Needle Rock viewpoint is about 8 km from Gudalur on the way to Ooty. The view point gives you a 360 degree view. The view point is also known as Soochimalai and gets its name from its conical shape.

Needle rock 

Way to Needle Rock view point

View around Needle rock

The team

After having a beautiful scenic view at needle rock, we headed to visit 9th mile shooting spot.

9th mile shooting spot : 

9th Mile is a Shooting spot situated at 9 miles from Ooty. Also known as 'Shooting Medu'. Several south Indian movies had been filmed here and hence it is named as shooting spot.

9th mile Shooting spot

After enjoying the scenic beauty at 9th mile we headed towards Ooty. We reached Ooty at 2:00PM. We had our lunch in a nearby hotel and headed to visit the last hill station of the day, Doddabetta.

Doddabetta : 

Doddabetta is the highest peak of the Nilgiri Hills. It is located at a distance of about 10 km from Ooty. Dodabetta Peak offers a full view of the Nilgiri Range and the town of Ooty.

Doddabetta hill station

There is a telescope located at the view point to have a better view of the surroundings. Unfortunately, we couldn't use it as the telescopic view was closed due to foggy weather condition at the hill top.

Scenic as far as the eyes can see

On the way back from Doddabetta we visited a tea factory, the Benchmark Tea factory.

Benchmark Tea factory :

The Bench Mark tea factory is located at a distance of 5km from Doddabetta hill station. 

The tea Factory

We stepped inside the factory and learned about how tea is processed from the tea leaves. We were served with hot tea processed in this factory. If you are a tea lover, don't miss to visit this factory when you are travelling to Ooty. 

Withering trough

Crushing of tea leaves

History of tea

Tea processing

It was around 6:00PM in the evening when we reached Ooty boat house from the tea factory. We could not go for boating, as it was already closed at 6:00PM. We later decided to go for boating, the next day.

Time for shopping:
Ooty is well famous for tea, home-made chocolates, varkey, biscuits and Nilgiri oils.
So we started to walk on the Ooty streets to shop for these items.

The weather was very much cool in the evening. So make sure to carry sweaters when you roam in Ooty, because the temperature usually falls below 20° c in the evening.

Ooty chocalates

Varkey 

2nd day at Ooty:

We started our 2nd day early in the morning to visit Ooty boat house. The boat house situated by the lake offers facilities with paddle boats, row boats, and motor boats. We took 4 seater paddle boating option to enjoy the ride at lake.

Boating at Ooty

After enjoying the boat ride, we headed to visit two hill stations which are located on the way to Coonoor.

Tea estates : 

There are plenty of tea estates located on Ooty - Coonoor road. We stopped our vehicle and stepped inside one of the tea estate. Wow!! it was a beautiful view from inside tea estate.

Tea estate
Best place to hangout for nature lovers

Inside the Tea estate

After spending some time at tea estate we head to visit the first hill station of the day Dolphin's nose.

Dolphin's nose hill station :

Dolphin's nose hill station is situated on the way to Coonoor on Ooty - Coonoor road.The tip of the peak resembles a dolphin's nose, hence the name Dolphin's Nose.

We reached this hill station at 11:00AM. It was a beautiful scenic view from the tip of the hill. One could see beautiful Catherine water falls from here.

Beautiful scenic view at Dolphins nose

View of Catherine falls from Dolphins nose

On the way back from Dolphin's nose, we came across an oil manufacturing factory,  The Nilgiri factory.

 The Nilgiri Factory :

The Nilagiri Factory

Extraction of  Nilgiri oil from the eucalyptus leaves

Nilagiry oil, also know as Eucalyptus oil is obtained from fresh leaves of the tall eucalyptus tree. We went inside the factory and had a look at Nilgiri oil extraction from the leaves. The manufacturing method is very simple. They boil eucalyptus leaves along with water, the vapor is cooled and collected in the vessel. A small hole located in middle of the vessel ensures water is dropped out and they collect oil which floats on top of the water.

Vessel to collect Nilagiri Oil

Lamb's rock hill station:

Lamb's rock is another hill station located at a distance of 10km from Dolphin's nose hill.
The weather was super cool here. Also the view was amazingly breath-taking from the hill top.

Lamb's rock hill station

 Picturesque and beautiful 

Time for some rest

While returning from Lamb's rock, we heard some flow of water falls. Beside us, we saw a mud road. Though we were not sure of where this road would lead us, we took a diversion from the main road hoping to find a water falls. After walking half a kilometer on the mud road, we found a small flow of water. The water was so crystal clear that we were able to see the surface underneath its flow.

Off the road - Small flow of water

The flower

After having lunch in a nearby hotel, we headed to visit the last place of the day, Coonoor railway station.

Toy Train :

Coonoor railway station

We arrived at the Coonoor railway station at 4:20 PM. We had already booked the train tickets in advance at www.irctc.com. It was at 4:30 PM when the train started to head towards Ooty.

The Toy train had 5 compartments, out of which one is first class and the rest are all general compartments.  

The Toy train

The train moves at snail pace passing through picturesque sceneries of tea estates, the Nilgiris mountains, small villages and towns. The toy train took almost 1.25 hours to cover 52km and reached Ooty railway station at 5:45PM.

View from train

At a stop during the journey

Another view from Train

The Final stop

We then hurried up to head towards Bangalore city, as the entrance to Bandipura forest checkpost closes at 9:00PM. We manged to pass through the Bandipura forest before the gate was closed and reached Bangalore at 2:00 AM.

Thanks to the entire team for being part of this trip. It was surely a memorable trip to Ooty. I recommend this to all natural lovers to visit these places in Ooty. You will definitely enjoy...

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