February, 2017 – our 3rd marriage anniversary. What better way to celebrate it than enjoying a few days at a romantic little hill station, just the two of us! And… what better hill station than the cosy scenic town called Coonoor, just a few hours away from us! (It’s a rhetorical question… don’t answer it.) So, we got on our planning hats and drafted a quick 3-day outing at Coonoor, which is just an hour from the more popular Ooty. We were particulary excited for this trip, as it would be our longest drive yet, with our 1 year old Hyundai Xcent.
In the dawn of 3rd Feb, 2017, as the whole city slept, we started our 322 Km long drive. The drive till Mysore was pretty boring, with the sun still asleep. But after we took the left turn towards Nanjanagudu, the views started getting better and the sky brighter. We stopped at Begur for breakfast and a teleconference meeting with my supervisors for a project, a condition attached to my leave approval. Anyway, after sorting that out, we resumed our journey, reaching our first scenic stop – Bandipur national park.
Bhavna wasn’t particularly in for the drive till now. But as soon as we entered the marked areas of Bandipur, a famous wildlife sanctuary, she jumped awake at the beautiful sight of the huge forest. We weren’t lucky enough to spot anything but deer, but the green views were more than sufficient to refresh us. The hilly roads had also started, giving us an adventurous feeling.
After about half an hour, we entered the prettier twin sister of Bandipur, Madhumalai national park. It was greener, lusher and the roads seemed to be a significant improvement. To enter Madhumalai, we had taken the longer route, as the shorter one had steep slopes & narrower turns, which I wasn’t confident enough to drive into, having been driving for just over a year.
Anyway, Madhumalai was over soon and our drive became even more scenic, taking us right through alluring pine forests (cover image at the top). We felt like we had walked into scenes from romantic blockbusters from Bollywood, as a lot of such movies had actually been shot in these areas. The roads twisted and turned every second, exposing is to new views and keeping us wide awake. I had even forgotten that I get motion sickness in such roads. We saw multiple lakes by the roads and stopped at a small one for a relaxing break.
Around 12 in the noon, we reached Ooty, the tourism capital of these areas. Once a scenic little town, its hustle & bustle had now turned it into a busy city. We drove through it and took the busy connecting road between Ooty and Coonoor. Within an hour, we reached our destination. The hotel we had booked was little tricky to spot, as it was over a hill, situated in between 2 narrow steep curvy lanes. After a small tussle with the receptionists, we captured our room and freshened up. It was a long drive and the exhaustion was now catching up to us, so we slept off till the evening.
We came out of our hotel, after it was dark. There were no plans drafted for today, so we decided to stroll around the town centre, enjoying the local culture. We drank tea from a small shop, did some casual shopping and walked towards the less crowded areas. The uphill roads made us tired easily and quite hungry. Our lunch was a mundane room-service at the hotel. So, we craved for something special in dinner.
We looked up Google and found a restaurant with great reviews, not so far from the town centre - La Belle Vie, at 180 Mciver. We kept walking towards it, in the cold but comfortable evening. The roads were mostly empty, suggesting how early the night ended here. After a while we located the place, a nicely decorated villa within a huge plot. We walked in, worried whether we were in the right place. We were.
It turned out this was no random restaurant but a heritage bungalow-turned-hotel, quite popular among tourists. It also happened to be the place where a famous recent Bollywood movie “Kapoor & Sons” was shot, which I identified quickly, even during night.
The restaurant was a mix of Indian & continental, with limited but carefully planned menu. The manager suggested a snapper fish, which was today’s special and we accepted the challenge, regretting it almost immediately, as it turned out to be of an intimidating size. But it tasted so great, we still dug into it and finished as much as we can.
After a couple more items, we left the place, regretting coming here during night time. The roads were now simply desolate and the angry dogs barking nearby made us nervous. Luckily found an auto-rickshaw which took us back to our hotel.
The next morning, we woke up early and to a refreshing view of tea-gardens right next to us. The hotel a great breakfast buffet – dosas, idlis, pancakes, waffles – all served hot! We filled up as much as we could.
Today was our main sightseeing day, reserved for local attractions. As I had read online that the interior roads were much narrower than the hilly highway we crossed yesterday, I requested for a driver-cum-guide to take us to the places. As we headed towards our first destination – Dolphin’s Nose – we agreed that it was a great decision not to drive myself.
Not only were some stretches of roads unpredictably narrow, but the day being a misty one, at times we could barely see anything in the front. It was an exciting experience. The initial few miles were a drive through a dense jungle, which slowly dissipated and gave way to the unending tea-estates. We stopped at a nice spot and our guide helped us with some customary pictures inside the smoothly green tea-garden.
After a while the roads turned really narrow, almost a single lane, and took sharp turns through a tea estate, overlooking a few nice resorts. At the end of the road was our view point – Dolphin’s nose (image at the my travels page). The place got its name from its sharp peeking shape, which looked like it was extruding out of the earth, just to get a good view. In a sunny day, tourists would be able to see the sight of a wide & deep green valley ahead, with a view of the lean & tall Catherine falls a mile ahead. But today being a misty one, we could only hear the low but prominent sound of Catherine falls, with only fog everywhere around us, giving a quite mysterious feeling. After a while of enjoying the company of fogs & monkeys, we started back for our next stop – Lamb’s rock.