Ooty (Udhagamandalam)

Overview

An Ooty tour begins with altitude. The town sits at about 2,240 m in the Nilgiri hills, so evenings turn cold while the plains below are still warm, and a sweater matters as much as a camera. Ooty is the short name for Udhagamandalam, the main town of the Nilgiris district.

Much of what you see dates from the colonial years. John Sullivan, then the Coimbatore collector, chose the spot as a summer retreat in 1819, and by the late 1820s it served as a sanatorium for the Madras Presidency. The Stone House, said to be the first bungalow built here, and St Stephen's Church of 1829 survive from that time. Sullivan also dammed valley streams to make Ooty Lake in 1824, where you can still hire pedal boats and rowing boats. The longer local story belongs to the Badagas, Todas, Kotas, Irulas and Kurumbas, and a museum at the Tribal Research Centre shows their artefacts.

Gardens and viewpoints fill most days. The Government Botanical Garden climbs the hillside in terraced lawns, and the Government Rose Garden is a second stop for flower lovers. Doddabetta, at 2,637 m the highest point in the Nilgiris, lies roughly 9 km out along the Kotagiri road, with a telescope house at the top that you can reach by vehicle.

Arriving by rail adds a different pace. The Nilgiri Mountain Railway covers 45.8 km from Mettupalayam, and Ooty is the end of the line. A rack-and-pinion section handles the steepest stretch as far as Coonoor, so the uphill trip takes close to five hours.

Tea shapes the landscape beyond town. Coonoor is about 19 km away and Kotagiri about 31 km, and the slopes between them hold working tea estates alongside fields of potatoes, carrots and strawberries.

May is the busiest month, when the summer festival brings flower and rose shows to the gardens. In the colder months the town is quieter, and the sky is often clearer for the views.

Known for

Government Botanical Garden and Rose Garden