[MSAneesh]

Finally, the elusive Ooty trip materialized! We'll come to the why? later.
It was worth the wait, as it turned out to be an amazing one, with family and in-laws. Ooty was very beautiful in the monsoon rains, and considerably less crowded, which let us enjoy the place to our contention.

Please excuse the picture quality, most of them were taken on mobile phone and some on a point and shoot camera! Also, avoided posting pictures with people, thus missing many nice ones I have, in this travelogue.

The car and the drive!

For the family, it is a trip for sightseeing and enjoying the Ooty weather. For me, it is the drive that drives!!

The car - my faithful companion, 2017 Vitara Brezza ZDi.
We started from Sarjapur road, Bangalore on 15th August morning and reached back home on 18th late night making it a 4-day trip. Onward route was via Nice road, Mysore, Gundalpet, Bandipur, Theppakadu, Masinagudi to Ooty.

The car was full – 4 adults, 2 kids and boot full of luggage for 4 days.
It was a steady cruise till Bandipur, from there to Theppakadu was standard forest road with speed breaker humps every 500m or so. There were small queues at the Bandipur forest check post, and at TN check post for entry to Mudumalai range.

From Theppakadu till Masinagudi, the road is quite narrow, with sharp edges at the shoulder. And then starts Kalhatty section with the 36 hairpin bends as captured by ottocycle here

Originally Posted by ottocycle

This weekend, I finally created the video of the 36 hairpin bends from my last Ooty trip. It covers driving through all the 36 hairpin bends of the Kalhatty Ghat.

It was great fun to work up the 1.3L MJD (erstwhile national motor), pulling the full load up on steep hairpin bends. And often, there are 2 hairpins close to each other, which leaves you pulling on 1st gear with no room to upshift. Brezza did it gracefully, never troubling me. But I wouldn’t say effortless, I could feel the engine squeezing its juice out to keep up to the challenge.

We started at 9.00 AM after a short breakfast stop near home. Reached Gundalpet town around 12:30. Tanked up from the HP fuel station next to Cafe Coffee Day, just before Gundalpet.

The first stop was at a sunflower field for pictures, right after the Gundalpet town. We were charged an ‘entry fee’ of Rs.100 to get in and take pictures among sunflowers.

The next stop was at Pugmark, Jungle Lodges, Bandipur for lunch around 1:15.
After the climb up through Masinagudi and Kalhatty, reached our destination in Ooty around 4:30 PM. Got light to medium rain while ascending the hairpins and rain persisted even after we reached Ooty.

Ooty terrain is all about climbing up and down with winding roads. Keep your motor on the boil, in its power band and you will make it easy. Inner roads are narrow, often with space for only one car. Reaching our resort did require a decent climb up on a narrow road. Almost all roads in Ooty have sewage lines running underneath, which is great to keep the place clean. But the manhole covers often double up as potholes!

The return drive was via Gudalur. Started back from Pykara lake at 2:45 PM on 18th. Reached home around 10:15 PM. The Ooty – Gudalur road is quite wide, with a far lesser gradient. The road surface is generally good, but there were some sections with potholes. There was lots of fog on the way down. A particular section on this route has super tall acacia trees on both sides. It was raining, at times heavy, throughout the forest stretch till we reached the Bandipur exit.

For latest updates on the route, follow the discussion on this thread

Originally Posted by bravo6

ePass requirement is extended till 30th September (as of now)

Wildlife sightings
During the onward drive, sighted multiple peacocks and herds of deer in the Bandipur – Mudumali forest section. On return, thrice saw herds of elephants including calves. Also sighted herd of deer multiple times.

Brezza’s quirks

After the fully loaded steep climb on Day 1 and a night’s rest, when I started the Brezza next morning, it started up at a higher RPM. Usually, my car starts up at 750 – 850 RPM, oscillates a little while in between this range and then settles around 800 RPM at idle in about 30 seconds. This time, it fired up straight to 1000. Was a bit surprised by this behavior.

On Day 2, the engine ran out of juice and stalled twice. Both times, I was climbing up short and relatively steep incline (once it was from a parking spot to the road). On both occasions, once the car was restarted and tried with slight slipped clutch and a heavier accelerator, it climbed easily. This made me a bit concerned. But after occurring twice, this never happened again.

On day 3, upon starting the car, I noticed heavy smoke from the tail pipe for a few seconds, before it settled back to normal. Not sure whether there was similar smoke on day 2 as well, since I did not pay attention to the exhaust pipe.

On day 4, the car started at the normal RPM. On the return drive to Bangalore, everything was back to normal, no change in behavior at all.

One lingering issue even after 3 weeks of the trip is, it still emits some smoke (not much though) on the first startup of the day, than it usually did earlier. The quantity of smoke emitted is gradually decreasing, and is almost back to normal.

Do you know, why this happens? Is it because, the high RPM climb released some previously deposited carbon in the engine?
Does it require an oil change, or any other inspection? I did check the engine oil with dipstick, it seems to be having the usual colour, texture, and smell. The car has run ~4000 KMs after the previous oil change.

The Stay
We stayed in Kluney Manor resort, a beautiful, old, Victorian style bungalow. They have well maintained, lush green gardens.

The building was constructed in the first half of 1800s by the British, then bought by Maharajah of Patna. Even now, it is known as Patna house. Currently it is owned by an AP based businessman.
We chose the Classic cottage for our stay. The rooms are big, with a garden facing living room attached. It is not a ‘premium’ experience, but more like an old-world charm. The rooms don’t have AC or room heater, but they do have fireplace, which will be lit up, on demand.

Their restaurant serves good food and has a wide variety of choice in the menu. Had dinner twice there. On the flip side, for dinner, their service was very slow. Breakfast was included in the room package, it was a regular spread, with nothing special to write about.

Finding your way in Ooty

Ooty roads are all about climbs up and down, narrow inner roads and crowded town center.

Most of the times, google maps did an excellent job of navigating. Where it gets confused is, when you reach a X fork where the road branches out to two roads almost in the same direction, one going upwards and the other downwards. Google took a few seconds to catch which road you are in and do the routing.

Another note is, google maps often routes you the shortest way, which will be through extremely narrow bylanes. It helps to avoid the traffic at the town centre, but at times you feel, the main road would have been better.

Only once, Google got it completely awry. I was driving to Lovedale from Cairn Hill. As usual, google maps routed through an inside road which was much shorter than the longer main road. At one place, google completely lost it, trying to show a ‘road’ which did not exist. So, I turned back ~100 meters to the place where we took the turn and asked two persons who were standing by the side. They said, 'the road on the right is the shortest, but it is fully broken, so you take the other one, which will avoid the broken stretch and merge back after the broken section. Then, once you reach the main road, turn right'. About 3 kms and 10 mins later through the narrow winding road, we reach the same spot, in front of the same two people . They were more worried than us!! The mistake was, once the longer route met the ‘broken road’, I took it for main road and turned right, which took us through the ‘broken section’ to the same place. We got it right the second time, of course through the 'broken road'.
These roads are so narrow that you must find a wider area to pass when a vehicle comes in the opposite direction. I had to reverse ~10 meters thrice. It was another fun. Google was completely lost all through this saga, mumbling non-existent directions!

Places Visited in this trip

On day 1, it was primarily the onward drive. We stopped at a Sunflower field after Gundalpet for photos. After reaching Ooty, rest of the evening was spent at Kluney Manor resort, where we stayed for 3 days.

I was a bit concerned about the rain spoiling our plans. But fortunately, it didn’t trouble us at all for the next 3 days. In the evening, once we reached our resort, had hot pakoras, sandwiches, tea and coffee from the in-house restaurant. It was yummy, in the rainy and cold weather!

Day 2 destinations

• Ooty Lake & Boathouse – Standard stuff!

Reached there in the morning around 9:45. Crowd was very less. Did the customary boating in Ooty lake. Snapped a few pictures in the background of the beautiful lake. Kids did a round of horse riding. The horses were very clean and healthy! There was an adventure park and toy train on the premises, but it was not open.

• Karnataka Siri horticulture garden – Amazing place!

Very beautiful and well-maintained place! There was no crowd at all. The garden had well-trimmed bushes, in different shapes and shades of green, colourful flowers, a hanging bridge, and a maze garden which kids liked. There was a fountain, but it was not operational. I think more area is getting developed under this place.

• Eagles Dare Adventure

My daughter wanted to do Zip-line, hence went to this place. They are pretty well organized. The zip-line has a beautiful view of the Ooty town. A good place for some adventure, especially for kids.

• Doddabetta Tea factory

The tea factory is opposite to the Eagles Dare. Here, you get to see how the harvested tea leaves are processed in to the tea packets you buy in the market. They do have an audio-visual presentation of the process as well. You get to taste their tea and there are sales counters where you can buy different flavoured tea and other products.

• Chocolate Factory

There is a chocolate ‘factory’ right next to the tea factory. I think it is not a factory per se, but a couple of 'display' mixers where you see chocolate paste getting mixed. This place seems to be more of a sales-oriented setup than any actual factory. You get to taste chocolate and get to buy different varieties of chocolate from the sales counters there.

• Stone house & museum

The stone house is said to be the first construction in Ooty. This was the one flop of the trip. First, google maps was confused and was not showing the correct way. Had to ask around a couple of times to reach this place. Unfortunately, it was locked due to a holiday. So, couldn’t get into the museum inside. Took a couple of pics and left.

• St Stephen’s Church – All peace and tranquility!

This place was the best choice to be the last one for the day. When we reached, there was nobody else there other than the caretaker. We sat down on the church benches for a while, a good rest at the end of the day. Calm and peaceful amidst the hustle and bustle of the evening Ooty. A historically important place, constructed in 1829.

Day 3 destinations

• Cairn Hill Nature awareness center -Peace, calmness, away from the Ooty crowd!

This is a lovely little place which has a watch tower about 800 meters into the forest walk, a hanging bridge and a small museum depicting the evolution of tribal settlement in the Nilgiris. The forest walk is not a trekking trail, but on an unpaved road. Still, it was a great place, with such fresh air and calmness. It also has the ‘pine trees’ where you can capture nice photos.

View from the Cairn Hill forest watch tower.

• Lovedale Train station

Nice little roadside train station with a single platform. When we were on the platform, a train arrived, which was one of the special services between Coonoor and Ooty. It was with the blue mountain train compartments, but with a diesel engine.

• Doddabetta Peak – Crowded, touristy and typical Ooty place!

I had decided to skip Doddabetta, as it is known to be a crowded touristy place. But a few times I heard 'Doddabetta' mentioned from the rear seat (you know what I meant!). I told myself, if Doddabetta is skipped, that will be deemed the biggest miss in Ooty

So, headed to Doddabetta from Lovedale with a lunch stop enroute. It was another climb up, past the eagles dare and tea factory we visited the previous day.
Doddabetta is where we saw the ‘Ooty crowd’. Parked in the crowded, haphazard parking area, then you walk up with hawker stalls on both sides of the path. Get to a crowded ticket counter and once you enter the area, you have a watch tower.
The specialty is, you have a clear view of the distant Coonoor at one moment and then you see the fog coming from your right, engulfing the whole place. A timelapse video would be wonderful! We escaped from the crowd pretty quickly. On the way back, I heard from the rear ‘we could have skipped Doddabetta’. It brought an ‘I told you so!’ smile on my face

Fog about to engulf the view from Daddabetta watch tower.

• High Hill tea estate – Nice place for tea garden pictures!

Had noted this place when we drove up to Doddabetta, and planned to stop on the way back. This is a roadside tea estate, where they allow people to walk up the tea garden and take pictures for an entry fee. We went in and walked up the tea garden and took pictures. Kids were full of energy and climbed up to the very top. Nice place. There are pro photographers available here, you can rent special costume and tea leaf basket and take pictures.

• Govt. botanical garden – The most visited in Ooty!

Knew all the way, it would be standard stuff. This day we wanted to have dinner outside, and had to use up time till dinner. So, decided to spend time in the botanical garden walking around. Didn’t venture to the upper areas and the Toda Mund section in the garden.

• Tibetan Market

This is at the parking lot near the main entrance of botanical garden. All you get here is warm clothes and woolen items. They have a fixed price policy. Missus did some shopping here.

Day 4 destinations

Come the day of return, we checked out from the resort after breakfast, spent some time in their beautiful garden, and took many pictures.

• Wenlock Downs Shooting point – Amazing views all round!

Earlier, I had struck off ‘shooting point’ from the list and Glenmorgan was my first destination for the day. On the way, the green clad hill looked good, so decided to explore it and got into the parking ground.
I must say, this was the best decision of the trip. The view from atop the hill on all three sides is mesmerizing, truly Switzerland-like sans the snow. It was sunny, but the cool breeze kept us fresh. Spent a lot of time here basking in the amazing scenery around and taking a lot of photos. Ordinary camera lens can’t do any justice to the beauty, wondered how amazing is the power of our eyes!!

• Glenmorgan lake & Dam – Calm & quiet place!

The inspiration to visit Glenmorgan and other less explored places in Ooty came from Pastey93 in the thread https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/trave...ml#post5189197 (When my Skoda Rapid met the Queen of Hills, Ooty)

Originally Posted by Pastey93

Glenmorgan (Thanks to BHPian TurboGuy for suggesting this place)

At Glenmorgan, we reached a check post where the policeman mentioned that cars cannot be taken further, but can explore the area on foot. You are allowed to take your vehicle if you have a pre-approved pass. So, we parked by the roadside and walked beside the lake.
The Glenmorgan lake is surrounded by tea estates. There is a small dam at the side of the check post. Every few minutes, the whole place gets engulfed in fog, and then it clears off.
The water form pykara lake is taken to the Glenmorgan lake through a canal form the outflow of Pykara dam. It is from here the penstock to the Pykara-Singara power station starts. You can see water flowing to the inlet of the penstock and a big control shutter.

• Pykara Lake & boating – Beautiful lake, well maintained place!

Pykara lake is much bigger and beautiful compared to Ooty lake.
The road to the lake, parking ground, boathouse and the whole area seems to be renovated recently. It was super neat and clean, and had hardly any crowd. Took the boat ride in an 8-seater, uncovered boat. Got some light rain while boating, which added to the experience. Had some snacks and tea/coffee from the TTDC canteen there. It was a very neat place with a semi open kitchen which was looking clean. Overall, a nice experience with Pykara lake boating!!

From Pykara lake, we started our return drive!

Places shortlisted, but skipped – maybe for another visit!
Had to skip these places to avoid a hectic schedule and ensure the trip was a relaxed one.

• Tribal Museum
• Emerald lake Viewpoint
• Thread garden
• Govt. Rose garden
• Radio Telescope, National Center for Radio Astrophysics. This place requires prior permission for entry.
• Pykara Falls – Saw a huge number of vehicles parked on both sides of the road, which made me re-confirm the decision to skip this place. I don't know what we missed, maybe a beautiful waterfall!

Skipped Coonoor this time, hope to plan another trip including the Nilgiri mountain rail.

• Sims park
• Dolphin Nose viewpoint
• High field tea estate
• Lamb’s rock connoor
• McIvor Cafe

Eateries worth noting

• The periodic table – A great café and fine dining experience. Beautiful ambience. The seats outside are served with menu from The periodic table as well as Le Café. Great food! a bit expensive though. This place is opposite to the collectorate and have parking inside the compound.
• Angaara – Nice ambience, super tasty non-veg food! This is a relatively small place, but high in demand. They don’t have parking, so you have to park by the side of the busy road.
• The Pugmark - JLR, Bandipur - Had lunch from this place on the way to Ooty. It is standard JLR menu, with buffet lunch. Food tasted fresh and good!
• Restaurant at Kluney Manor Resort - A good restaurant, serving tasty food. They have a good variety of items in the menu. The snacks we had on Day 1 was also very tasty.
• Sree Vinayaka, between Gundalpet & Bandipur. Food was ok. But the place wasn't clean, so were the toilets. Not recommended.

What did I miss in this trip?

• Taking enough pictures of my car. When we were on the way back, it occurred to me that I missed taking pics of the car. So, stopped at a safe place and clicked a couple of pics. What you see in this post is all I have.
• Saving the dashcam footage of the trip. By the time I checked a week later & after many local runs, all it had was the footages from Mysore to Bangalore. Missed the 36 hairpin bends, enchantingly foggy section on the return leg to Gudalur, and a few beautiful sections in the Mudumalai & Bandipur forest stretch where we saw elephants and deer.

Epilogue - Why the elusive Ooty?

Well…There is some history with me and Ooty! I had planned & booked Ooty trips thrice before, but never happened.

• The first one was long back, when in college. Ooty was one of the destinations for our annual tour. But, I fell ill and had to skip that trip.
• In 2018, had booked Ooty stay and a train ride. But, the Kerala floods happened and I had to cancel.
• Again, planned and fixed dates in 2019. But there was again heavy rains in western ghats and major landslides in the Nilgiris. The result, cancelled again!

So, irrespective of whether Ooty is good or not, I had to go to Ooty!!
Eventually, the 4th time lucky trip turned out to be excellent, way beyond expectations. I believe, it definitely has to do with the timing, as I mentioned about an earlier trip in this post

Originally Posted by MSAneesh

The weather was perfect - misty, foggy and cool. Absolutely no crowd. Loved every bit of it. Timing matters, after all!

A parting shot - Brezza saying Good Bye, Ooty!

[Aditya]

Thread moved out from the Assembly Line. Thanks for sharing!

[deepak_misra]

Originally Posted by MSAneesh

It was great fun to work up the 1.3L MJD (erstwhile national motor), pulling the full load up on steep hairpin bends. And often, there are 2 hairpins close to each other, which leaves you pulling on 1st gear with no room to upshift. Brezza did it gracefully, never troubling me. But I wouldn’t say effortless, I could feel the engine squeezing its juice out to keep up to the challenge.

There is one stretch before Ooty with a very steep gradient. Due to an optical illusion you dont see the slope but you can feel your car really straining on this stretch. After my 3rd or 4th trip, I realized it. Did you experience it. It really makes you worry since it seems there is an issue with car engine.

[Geo_Ipe]

Beautiful narration and pictures of a short visit to the Queen of the Hills! I've been to Ooty 4 times, she never failed to mesmerize me. The only grouse is the crowd on holidays and lack of dining options outside the resorts.

The mini travelogue I had compiled after my visit in 2022:
https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/motor...y-vellore.html (Four Himalayans tame the Nilgiris | Biking Trip | Vellore - Ooty - Vellore)

[rbp1988]

Originally Posted by deepak_misra

There is one stretch before Ooty with a very steep gradient. Due to an optical illusion you dont see the slope but you can feel your car really straining on this stretch. After my 3rd or 4th trip, I realized it. Did you experience it. It really makes you worry since it seems there is an issue with car engine.

Is this the straight stretch with a divider for about ~200m? I remember being shocked that my almost empty vento was struggling to pull on that stretch.

[MSAneesh]

Originally Posted by deepak_misra

There is one stretch before Ooty with a very steep gradient. Due to an optical illusion you dont see the slope but you can feel your car really straining on this stretch. After my 3rd or 4th trip, I realized it. Did you experience it. It really makes you worry since it seems there is an issue with car engine.

Originally Posted by rbp1988

Is this the straight stretch with a divider for about ~200m? I remember being shocked that my almost empty vento was struggling to pull on that stretch.

Yes! since this stretch is straight, you don't 'see' the gradient. I could realize it early, promptly downshifted and pulled slowly.
The downward lane of this divided stretch has speed breaker humps to keep speed in check. That was another indicator of the gradient.

[deepak_misra]

Originally Posted by rbp1988

Is this the straight stretch with a divider for about ~200m? I remember being shocked that my almost empty vento was struggling to pull on that stretch.

Yes, it must be the same. You can really feel the engine crying and straining.
Next time when I travel, I will try and measure the exact slope.

[VijayAnand1]

As they say, colloquially, welcome to Ooty, I forgot the Malayalam movie name though that had this famous line. Seems, you've made a list of a-la-carte check-points and ticked it up pretty good. Ooty, is mostly calm and peaceful post August thru post-monsoon mid December. You get the chills, the views and everything is peacefully laid out, as opposed to choking traffic with long waits, crowded restaurants with traffic slug fest all around. Even we Ooty residents reel back in pain when the peak seasons starts.

Cheers!
VJ

[MSAneesh]

Originally Posted by VijayAnand1

As they say, colloquially, welcome to Ooty, I forgot the Malayalam movie name though that had this famous line. Seems, you've made a list of a-la-carte check-points and ticked it up pretty good.

Its "Welcome to Ooty, nice to meet you", by still photographer 'Nischal' in the movie 'Kilukkam'.

As a resident of Ooty, is there any other place you would recommend to visit?

[Aquitej]

Thanks for the travelogue.
I have bookmarked this thread for my next visit

[iamitp]

Great read! I am super excited about my upcoming visit during Diwali holidays.