Spontaneous Serendipity

After many postponements, replanning, etc we finally embarked on the coveted weekend road trip to Ooty. We were assured of good times as Angshuman & Shipra were accompanying us.

The Journey: We started at 8:30PM and reached Mysore via SH17 at 1AM after a pit stop at McDonalds for post-dinner snacks . We were delayed a little en route as we were stopped thrice by the cops for complete vehicle search. In Mysore, Vivek and Yogesh were courteous as ever and gave us shelter for the night. Next day, as we finally left Mysore at 9AM after heavy breakfast at a local deli, I estimated to reach Ooty by 1PM. The NH212 road till Gundlupet is pretty good but was so boring that Neiv dosed off immediately. The road thereafter becomes NH67 and is potholed-to-non-existent for next 10kms.

We had expected to see some animals in Bandipur National Park and were not majorly disappointed as we saw some deer, elephants, peacock and ofcourse lots of monkeys! Before crossing Karnataka state border, forest guards stopped us for complete vehicle check… 4th time in this journey! On entering TN state and Madumalai Tiger Reserve, cops again checked our papers/license. On seeking directions, the humble cop aptly asked us to take left onto a SH67 road after 4kms instead of going straight on the longer NH67  and we heartily oblidged

SH67 is a single lane road for the most part that runs thru the deep forest till the climb starts. The road climbs at an angle of around 35 degrees involving 36 hair raising hairpin bends. Initially, I had to put my WagonR in gear 1 to make it chug along, but later on it took the load in gear 2 very easily. The best part of this stretch of road is that you could amazingly feel the steep drop in temperature and atmospheric pressure. We reached Ooty ahead of schedule at 12 Noon and were resting in our Hotel rooms by 12:30PM.

Day 1: Botanical Garden and DoddaBetta peak
We started at 1:30PM from Hotel and had a buffet lunch at a restaurant close by. We decided to finish off two of the main attractions of Ooty… it being a clear sunny day, we started with Botanical Garden, which I had seen some 10years back. To my amazement not a single thing had changed ever since… it was still the same boring garden with few good plant varieties and was hugely overcrowded. We stayed at the place for an hour or so and headed for DoddaBetta peak. The peak is around 9kms from Ooty city and the road is very scenic. The peak itself was again overcrowded and we were kind of uneasy as the temperature must have dipped to single digits and Neiv was not properly clothed. We stayed there for few minutes, took some snaps, bought stuff from street vendors while Shipra enjoyed horse riding. We were back in hotel room by 6PM, spent the evening by having dinner at the room with a game of dumb charade and long hours of gossip/discussions. We finally called it a day at 2AM

Day 2: Ooty Lake and Coonoor: Dolphin’s Nose, Lamb’s Rock

Next morning we started at 9AM and after heavy breakfast straightaway went the star attraction of Ooty – The Ooty Lake. As expected, the lake itself is/has been pretty disappointing, its just the good weather that makes it so enjoyable. We took a row boat for 5 and went for a fast sail around the lake. After boating and quick snaps, we started with fun rides – Columbus, tora-tora, dashing cars, etc. Neiv had the max fun in the Mini-Train. Later, while Nandini & Shipra were busy buying plants, Neiv and I decided to take a short horse riding trip.

We skipped lunch and directly started for the town of Coonoor from the lake. It is some 17kms away from Ooty and at a lower altitude. Seems, the lower altitude makes it fit for Tea farming and we saw plenty of them in coonoor. Angshuman inquired about the Nigiri tourist toy train at Conoor station but as the logistics weren’t working out, we completely dropped the idea of taking the train. We then headed for Dolphin’s Nose which was around 14kms from city station. The road was good but with one lane and heavy traffic. Every now and then we had to stop for several minutes to make way to some bus/van coming from opposite direction. As expected, Dolphin’s Nose turned out to be a standard view point, though made very famous by several bollywood movies. On our way back we stopped at another view point – Lamb’s Rock – for 40 secs and headed back to Ooty. Had late snacks/lunch at Cafe Coffee Day and as we were pretty tired, we called it a day by 8PM.

Day 3: Wenlock Downs, Pykara Falls and return from Ooty
We finished our breakfast and started our return journey at sharp 10AM. This time we chose to take the longer road – NH67 – so that we could cover Pykara lake and some other sights on our way back. The road was one of the best mountain (ghat) roads that I have driven in India… all with excellent lane markings, etc.

We first stopped at lake created by Kamraj Sagar Dam (Sixth mile) for few minutes and took some snaps. Few kilometer ahead we again stopped at a scenic spot called at Ninth Mile… famous for several bollywood movies  that have been shot there. 23kms from Ooty we made our final stop at Pykara Falls, where you have a tiny stream of water flowing over rocks. There is nothing amazing about the falls but the clean and chilling water refreshed us. Even though the water was chilling enough, Neiv still wanted to take a deep dive inside it…

The remaining part of the journey was scenic but uneventful… we reached Mysore at 4PM, stopped again at McDonald for dinner on the way to Bangalore… traffic closer to Bangalore was a killer… we finally reached home at 9:30 PM… Neiv was all tired and had dosed off somewhere enroute.

Summary: Ooty is a wonderful place with an amazing year round weather. Though none of the sights are breathtaking, the scenic roads, clean air and the lovely weather easily compensate for that.

How to reach Ooty: Bangalore – take SH17 to – Ramanagram – Chennapatna – Maddur – Mandya – Srirangapatnam – Mysore – take NH212 via ring road to – Nanjangud –  Gundlupet – take NH67 to – Hangala – Bandipur – Mudumalai – Theppekaddu – take left onto SH67 after bridge to – Masinagudi – Kalhatti – Ooty = 280 kms.

Road Directions and map available at Google Maps Here.

Road Condition:
- SH17: Excellent, 4 Lane, pothole free
- NH212: Average, 2 lane – 10kms between Gundlupet and Hangala is very bad
- SH67: Good, 1 lane, steep climb and hairpin bends for around 10kms

Find the Picture Album Here.