Skip to main content

A Visit to the Ooty Gardens


A Visit to the Ooty Gardens:

Started my day from Mettupalyam at 7.30am and missed the mountain train which was at 7.15am, i just caught a bus to Ooty, the views are breathtaking even in bus drive too.
As the bus started to ride over the Nilgiri hills i could sense the temperature dropping quickly. There are a number of hairpin bends on the way, so better don't have food before starting the drive.
In the early drive you could see lots of trees on the mountains, and once u spot tea estates it means u r nearing to Coonoor, further 11km up the hills is Ooty.
Got down at Charring cross(Ooty town) at 9.30am and couldn't find many good veg hotels around so had to settle for Durga veg. Food is average but no better choice. 

Green Lawns at Botanical Garden
Just a km away is the Government Botanical Garden, in fact it is the best place in Ooty town. It is said that it is the largest Botanical garden in India. It is really worth visiting it and one of the best maintained gardens i ever seen. Spent almost 5 hours taking pictures of landscape, birds, flowers and architecture. In between it rained almost for an hour. After the rain stopped the sun came up almost within few mins and there was lot of mist coming from the woods. I could manage to do some shopping around the garden and just walked from the Tibetan market.

 St.Stephens Church

Left from the garden at 3pm and reached Charring cross again for lunch, just 1km from there is the St.Stephens Church, although i was the lonely dweller, it was a quite peaceful place away from the town. There are decent views of the city from there.





A Birds eye view of the Rose Garden
The Church closed at 4.30pm and i left to Rose Garden which is aound 2km from the church. It is said that it is the largest Rose garden in India. Not a great place for tourism, but a decent place for getting the views of the town on the slopes and definitely a picnic spot and rose lovers will really love it, the garden itself is on the slopes of Elk hill. Spent the rest of my day taking pictures and left at 6.30pm.

Walked down the hill about half a km is the commercial road where u can find lots of hotels and had my dinner and left at 7.30pm to charring cross for some shopping, I could find lots of shops for shopping home made chocolates, but suggest u to go to NCC super market for shopping home made chocolates and Nilgiri tea, one can find lot of varieties over there. One can check out Cafe Coffee day at Charring cross.

It was around 8pm when i left the place and caught a local bus from there and reached Main bus stand. Finally had to wait for an hour to get my bus Airavat back to Bangalore. And as usual KSRTC service rocks, had a pleasant travel with all those good memories.

Although this was my 2nd visit to ooty, pretty much covered the ooty town only in the 2nd visit. Had been to most of the places in ooty in my 1st visit in 2009 including Nilgiri Mountain Railway(Toy Train), Pykara falls, Pine forest, 6th mile-9th mile(shooting medu/spot), Ooty Lake/Boating house, Doddabetta peak, Kamaraj Sagar Dam(Sandynalla reservoir).
On my 2nd visit I wanted to explore the town and mainly for the purpose of Photography, covered the Government Botanical Gardens, Government Rose Garden, and St. Stephen's Church.
There are few more on my checklist Avalanche, Mukurthi National Park, Emerald Lake, Dolphin's Nose/Catherine Falls in Coonoor.

Top 5 Places to visit in Ooty town:
1.Government Botanical Garden(3 Km, 7 am to 6.30 pm), just opposite the entrance to the Botanical Gardens u can find Tibetan Market.(opens only after lunch)
2.Government Rose Garden(2km, 8am to 6.30pm)
3.St Stephens Church(0.8km from charring cross, 10 am - 1 pm & 3 pm - 5 pm)
4.Ooty Lake and Boat house(1 Km, 9 am to 5.30 pm), just opposite to the entrance of Ooty Lake u can find Thread Garden(open till 6 pm), also there is a Deer park around 1km from Ooty Lake located on the other side of the lake
5.Government Museum & Art Gallery (1.5km, 10 am to 1 pm and 2 am to 5 pm) only if u interested in museum's and art.
Note :
-Timings are tentative. Distances are from Main bus stand unless specified.
-Shop at Charring cross for some homemade chocolates, Nilgiri Tea and Eucalyptus oil.

Top 10 Places to visit around Ooty (in order):
1.Doddabetta Peak (10km, 7.00 am to 6.00 pm)-there are buses from bus stand every 30mins.
2.Avalanche
3.Mukurthi National Park
4.Emerald Lake
5.Dolphin's Nose/Catherine Falls in Coonoor
6.Shooting medu/spot 6th mile and 9th mile, it means 6miles/9miles from ooty town
7.Pykara Lake and Pykara Falls, can visit Pine forest on the way to pykara falls
8.Kamraj Sagar Dam
9.Tiger Hill
10.kodanadu view point

Mode of Transport:
1.There are daily sight seeing trips from TN Govt buses running from Main bus stand.
2.Also u find buses to almost all the places from the Main bus stand.
3.There are private day sight seeing trips organised from private travels, u can find them around Charring cross.
4.These is a private taxi stand at Charring cross, and charge somewhere around 800 for day sight seeing, else can hire a cab for some fixed prices.

5.If u want to do sight seeing only inside the town then u can make best use of the town buses(green mini buses) which charge only 5rs inside the town, else u can avail autos which charge anywhere between 40Rs-100Rs for 1km-4km distance.

Other Useful travel information:
Mountain Train from Mettupalyam to Ooty : MTP UAM PASSR dep Mettupalyam 7.10am -> arr ooty 12pm.

Photo Gallery: 

View point, Botanical Gardens
It was raining heavily in the afternoon during summer
You can find 100's of beautiful and well maintained flowers like these
one can find many different kind of trees
Inside one of the mini glass house
Walk way to the Italian Garden, Botanical Garden
Botanical Gardens
Lawn
Mist coming from the woods
At the Entrance, Botanical Gardens
Plan of the Botanical Garden
Glass House, Botanical Garden 
View from Stephens Church
View from Stephens Church



View from the Rose Garden
There are a variety of birds in this one in the gardens



For More Pics CLICK HERE


Labels:
Location: Ooty, Tamil Nadu, India

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Micromax Canvas 2 A110 Hands on Review

Micromax Superfone Canvas 2 A110(Jet Black/Calm White): After using it for a week, I felt pretty good about my decision for going with a new brand like Micromax over the mighty Samsung Galaxy S Duos and Sony Tipo Dual. Particularly not sure about its reliability but the build quality looks pretty decent. Below are my ratings for the phone aka Phablet. Build Quality (8/10): The build quality was above my expectations keeping in mind of the price tag, from front it looks just like a Galaxy high end smartphone like SIII or Note II. It has a matte finished back cover which is good for protection towards scratches and there is a metal casing all around the phone, which adds up the beauty of the phone. One more advantage of this phone is it has a touch home button instead of a hard button as seen in iPhone and Galaxy phones. Camera (5/10): [8MP autofocus (Tap to Focus), dual flash, supports up to 3264x2448 pixels, Panorama] Don't fall for the specs as it is said...
113 comments
Read more

Interiors of Chennakeshava temple, Belur

Interiors of Belur Chennakeshava temple: Originally the interior received much daylight, but the added screens make it dark and mysterious. The interior of the temple consisting of a garbhagriha, Sukhanasi, navaranga and a mandapa takes us to a new world of sculptures with lathe turned pillars of various designs. The central square of the navaranga has four pillars decorated with bracket figures atop. These bracket figures are remarkably of superior workmanship in conception and execution. The Navaranga has raised verandah's on both sides of the three entrances. Sufficient space has been left out in the central hall (Navaranga) for musical performances and Puja (worship) ceremonies by large numbers of devotees and others. Sculptures on the entrance of Garbhagriha Pillars: There are a total of 48 pillars, while the four central pillars have been hand churned, the others had been lathe turned.  One of the four Pillar's at the central square of the ...
1 comment
Read more

Madanikas of Belur Chennakeshava temple

Madanikas of Belur Chennakeshava temple: Most popular feature of Belur is its Shilabalike’s or the Bracket figures of different dance forms. Various poses of Madanika's at the Belur Chennakeshava temple. There are 42 Madanikas or Bracket figures on the corner out of which 38 are outside the temple and four are inside the temple. Each figure attracts on its own merits. They represent beautiful damsels in various moods representing feminine charm and grace, this perhaps are one of the best creations of the Hoysala sculptors of the Belur temple. There are a total of 40 pillars on the outer walls, each with a bracket figure of dancing girls (38 in total on outer walls). These sculptures are finely proportioned and exceedingly ornamented. Actual placement of the Madanika's op top of the columns Out of the 38 Madanikas on the outer walls, I've written a photologue on 25 and all the 4 interior Madanikas. Each one of these Madaniks are given a number to r...
Post a Comment
Read more

How to update Micromax canvas 2 A110 with official Jelly Bean V3 - detailed steps

How to update Micromax A110 Canvas 2 to V3 ROM: I've just updated my canvas 2 to Jelly Bean official update from Micromax. Before you proceed I would like to make sure that this site is nowhere guaranteed for your successful upgrade and we are nowhere responsible for any claims. This is just a tried and tested genuine way to upgrade to Jellybean only for Micromax Canvas 2 A110 users. Software release notes (from Micromax ftp site): 1. Operating system is upgraded from ICS to Jelly bean. 2. M! Store is removed. 3. New wallpapers are integrated. 4. Software is backward compatible with old TP available (BYD Make). Here is what you can do by yourself and it is simple too. First of all take a complete backup of your data, you can use the following tools from the play.google.com 1. App Backup & Restore: to backup all your apps as apk files which will store them on mnt\sdcard2\ app_backup_restore 2. G Cloud Backup from GENIE9: It c...
77 comments
Read more

Aurangabad - II: Ajanta - Paintings of Cave 16 & 17

Aurangabad - II: Ajanta - Paintings of Cave 16, 17 Stunning paintings on the verandah ceiling of Cave 17 Cave 15: Mahayana Buddhist cave standing without pillars, this is currently used as a shop. Cave 15 Cave 16: According to an inscription found here, the excavation of this cave was caused by Varahadeva, the minister of Vakataka king Harishena (circa A.D. 475-500). The cave (19.5 X 22.25 X 4.6 m) which is a monastery consists of a central hall supported by 20 pillars, surrounded by 14 cells on three sides, vestibule and a sanctum for Buddha image.  path to cave 16 sculpture at cave 16 The important painted themes depicted are the conversion of Nanda; death of princess, Miracle of Sravasti; Maya’s dream; and certain incidents from the life of Buddha. The Jataka stories depicted are Hasti, Maha-ummagga, Maha-sutasoma. Painted inscriptions can also be noted inside the caves. Leftover paintings at cave 16 Cave 17: This cave is famous for i...
Post a Comment
Read more