Other Places of Interest

St. John’s Church is another picturesque spot to visit. Christianity finds representation in the form of the various small to big churches in and around Coonoor. Small places of worship containing statues depicting Christianity can be spotted even on the way from the plains to the hills.

Wellington, the nearby town, is certainly to be visited for it has other beautiful spots for tourists to explore. Home of the Wellington Cantonment, this town exhibits principles of neatness and good maintenance. Also situated here is the Wellington Defense Services Staff College (DSSC) The golf course located here is also famous and has been frequented by film shoots. Perfect for long walks and long drives is my advice!

The Pasteur institute in Coonoor is famous for research on rabies and developing antidotes. Founded in 1907, one of its important projects is preparing polio vaccine. It located near the Sim’s Park and can be visited only on Saturdays. To visit the place on the other days, one is required to have permission granted by the Director of the Institute. If you're all scientific and highbrow, make this a stop!

The Catherine Falls is a spectacular sight that can be seen from Dolphin’s Nose.

It gushes down for 250 ft. and is accessible from Kotagiri. You can see it perfectly from a little wooden outpost near the row of shops along the route up to Dolphin's Nose. Perfect camera angle too!

Two sights in one journey...Dolphin's Nose and Catherine Falls!

Droog, ruins of a fort used by Tipu Sultan in the sixteenth century, is situated 13 km from Coonoor. Tourists have to trek 4 km to get to the spot, but the fabulous view offered almost makes up for it!

More tea! The Tea Factory present in Coonoor produces varieties of tea that the town is famous for. The separating sheds for tea can be seen on the slopes where the tea is grown. A bi-weekly auction is held by UPASI (United Planters Association of South India). Prior permission is required to attend the auctions. The timings are between 8:30 am and 6:30 pm.

Trips to these spots on interest can be finished within 3-4 days of staying in Coonoor. Engaging a form of transport to get to these places is also easy. As most of them are viewpoints, it's the best way to see the beauty of the mountains. And you may just discover why they call them the "Blue Mountains"! :-)

Chapter 4: Special stuff to do in and around Coonoor

This chapter is a kind-of footnote. If you've finished touring the previously mentioned spots, then this chapter might help you with something extra to do.
Well, if you have enough patience, energy and time to do some other stuff after going to all these places…there are a few things left to do. Coonoor is essentially a place where people don’t bother with means of transport. Any distance, whether long or short, is covered by foot. So, we took walks around the place. The roads are in good condition and always look inviting because of the green cover around them, the trees, creepers and bushes…it was quite a treat to go walking.

While travelling around Coonoor in our taxi, we noticed a few signboards announcing a place called “Needlecraft”, Erin Villa, Singara Estate. The board said it sold hand embroidered linen. That was enough for my mom and I. We made our way through the winding, at some point even precarious, road (in the taxi, of course!) and came upon an extremely beautiful old-style villa. The garden too was adorable, overlooking a tea garden. We immediately whipped out our cameras and got down to it. And of course, we made a few purchases as well (!)

Another thing we did was to go exploring the marketplace. Having been told over and over by my mother that the bakeries in Coonoor were excellent thanks to their British baking heritage, we just had to sample some of it. Let me tell you, it totally lived up to its expectations! The buns, rolls, bread…all of them were very good. The neighboring shop too caught our interest for the fact that it sold Toda jewellery. Now, this pure silver decorative jewellery is available, I think, in most of the shops there. So, if you’re the jewellery fan, you should definitely do some shopping here.
Well, obviously, I don’t need to mention tea or eucalyptus oil at this point. Because that would be obvious. :-)

Essentially, the trip to Coonoor is what you decide it to be. We took walks and long drives just to look at the sights and scenes. And that was what made the trip memorable. The tourist places will always be the ones to visit, and there will be a lot of people there. The local tourist spots are only expected to be crowded, slightly messy and noisy. So, if you decide to chalk out your own new thing to do, it will be all the more enjoyable!

Chapter 5: Ooty (the place everyone knows) :-)

Ootacamund, home of the Todas, was transformed and developed magically under the British Raj to become Ooty- the Queen of Hillstations, as everyone calls it. “Ootaca” has been taken to mean “single stone” (according to the Tamil language) and “mund” refers to a Toda village, according to the language of Badaga.
Standing at an altitude of 7,440 feet (2,268 m) above sea level, Ooty certainly is the prodigal town of the Britishers, having served as the summer capital of the Madras presidency and being well connected with a complicated railway system built by British citizens. Now known as Udhagamandalam, Ooty still remains an important town in terms of administration as it is the headquarters for the district of the Nilgiris. And it has always been a “dream spot” for tourists touring South India. Ask any aged person, and they will tell you that the “exotic locale” of the films in those days was almost always Ooty.
Ooty is known to draw a large number of tourists every year, both Indian and international. It maintains a temperature of 15-20 degrees Celsius throughout the year and drops to freezing temperatures of 0 degrees and below. So, you probably wouldn’t want to venture near the Nilgiris during the winters!

Situated at a distance of 105 km from Coimbatore and 155 km from Mysore, Ooty is well-connected by rail and road to these places. The ideal way to travel would be to reach any of these main centres of Coimbatore or Mysore (A trip from Bangalore, situated 330 km away from Ooty, would be too arduous) by air, road or rail and then travel by taxi-cab or train to reach the heights of Ooty.

A visit to Ooty is, no doubt, one of the best ways to experience the magic of the hillside. The various tourist spots and centres also prove to be absorbing. Basically, you will never run out of stuff to do here. But, one of the main problems is the total commercialization of the place, not to mention overcrowding. The charm that Ooty is, or rather was, known for can only be experienced in isolation from the “madding crowd”. Honestly.