The journey from Mysore to Ooty took about 4 hours, most was on the flat through various towns but started to climb it’s way up 1,000 metres firstly through Bandipur Sanctuary in Karnataka then on to the Mudumalia Wildlife Sanctuary in Tamil Nadu before climbing up even more steeply to the Hill Station area in the Nigrili Hills.
Both sanctuaries boast that they have large herds of elephant, deer, wild dog, and bonnet monkeys, as well as many birds and reptiles. We were warned that seeing any elephants or tigers wouldn’t be likely as during January they are high up in the hills and only come down when it’s really hot. But we did see monkeys and lots of deer. And an elephant who was being trained (to work in the lumber industry).
The monkeys were too fast to photograph!
Some villages seem to cling to the side of the hills.
The roads snaked up after the park area to the top of a high hill, at each hairpin bend was a signpost urging drivers to be careful. Someone had spent a lot of time thinking about these, eg, ‘Bad driving costs lives’, ‘Mountains are for pleasure if you drive at leisure’, ‘Normal speeds meets everybody’s needs’ and ‘If you drive with care accidents will be rare’.
Of course each warning was completely ignored by all drivers, at one point there was a motorbike trying to overtake a car who was trying to overtake a bus on a hairpin bend 🤯 thankfully there wasn’t anything coming the other way or we would all have been toast! We eventually made it to the summit then wound our way down into the plateau and Ooty.
Udhagamandalam or Ooty as it was shortened to by the British who flocked here to avoid the summer heat, is the most famous Hill Town and was disparagingly named ‘Snooty Ooty’ it’s definitely not snooty these days, it’s very busy, grubby and crowded with visitors coming to see the animal sanctuaries and ride the old narrow gauge steam trains which were used to haul the tea from the plantations. Now it’s only used for tourists and that is exactly why we are here. We will be catching the train from Charing Cross Station and we chugging our way to Conoor. But that’s another adventure.
Today we visited Doddabeta, which is high on the Nigrili Hills the other side of Ooty, on the top is a tower for people to take photos.
These photos were taken 15 mins apart when the clouds had lifted.
On the way back down from Doddabeta
View down from the top of the viewing tower at Doddabeta
From there we went to visit a Tea and Chocolate Factory, most of the factory has been made over into retail experience but they do have a small set up so you can see tea leaves being processed and dried and ground into tea, with a free sample at the end of the tour, but you don’t get to sample different types of black tea, oh no, it’s served in true Indian style with condensed milk and lots of sugar. I actually liked it but then I don’t normally like tea at all, that gives you the idea of just how far away the flavour was to any tea you’d drink at home 🤣
How it starts off looking…
How it ends up looking.
and bits in between
The chocolate shop was vast, with plenty of choices, you told one person which varieties you wanted, someone else packed them (after scanning your wristband) then you went to the pay desk, scanned your wristband again and paid, then walked to the final desk where, yes you’ve guessed it, more scanning, then your purchase was packed. Hey ho, we’re getting used to there being a job for everyone. Oops forgot to take a photo as I was engrossed in the product 😜
So here’s some we bought, purely for research purposes of course 😜
We then sallied forth down the hill into the town and the incomprehensible one way system to the Botanical Gardens, after Bengaluru’s gardens we weren’t expecting much but this time we pleasantly surprised. It was quite busy as Republic Day was a few days ago and there are a lot of people on holiday here.
There’s a large well kept lawn area in the centre (no walking on the grass) and a circular path all around on an incline, with various things of interest on the way. A pond with lilies, a Japanese Garden (being refurbed) a Fern glass house, a large Kew Garden type glasshouse. Swerving right and up the hill was the Cactus Garden, a large Band Stand, an Italian Garden at the top. Coming back down, lots of beds with different styles – different coloured marigolds in the shape of a clock face (constantly at 7:20), begonias, pansies, salvias and osteospermums.
We sat down to eat our ice creams and had various families walk by and ask if the wife/daughter could sit next to us so they could take a photo, then it moved on to having small children with us and then toddlers sitting on my lap. Everyone was very friendly and asked where we’d been and where we were going, telling us where they were from, etc. We thought at one point we wouldn’t get away.
Our final morning in Ooty was an early start catching the small gauge UWH historical railway from Ooty to Conoor. A journey of an hour and 20 mins. We were lucky enough to grab seats next to the window, and even luckier to find we had the best view of the hillside and valleys all along the route.
Herr are some of the shots I took.
Straight after the rail journey we jumped in the car and were driven for 4 hrs, again up and down the hillside around scary hairpin bends (but you know we are getting used to them and scoffed along with our driver at people’s inadequate driving when taking hairpin bends at breakneck speed 😜) and we arrived in Wayanard in Kerela in one piece! Ready for a safari tomorrow