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A Trip4India > Destinations India > Ooty Tourism

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Ooty Tourism

State : Tamil Nadu
Area : 36 sq kms
Temperature : 10 °C - 25 °C (Summers)5 °C - 21 °C (Winters)
Altitude : 2240 mts
Rainfall : 121 cms
Language : Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada and English
Best Season : April – June; September – November

Need to beat the heat? Welcome to the cool lavender hues of Ootacamund or Udhagamandalam, more popularly known as Ooty. The uncrowned Queen of southern hill resorts of India, the beautiful Blue Mountains are the perfect backdrop for the cool summers.

The visit to the hill resort promises to be a treat for all the travelers. The beautiful botanical garden offers the sprawling maze of greens and blooms. They are home to the manicured and planned trees, shrubs and herbs. The purity in the air adds to the beauty of the flowers.

While at the hill resort enjoying the cool breezes make a trip to the Ooty Lake. The lake is the centre of much of tourist activities. At the nearby boathouse the rowboats and the motorboats can be hired for unwinding. Besides boating simply watching the soothing sunset in an experience of a lifetime. Adjacent to the lake is a large graveyard of St. Thomas Church that was built way back in 1870. Here the huge pillar topped by a cross, over the grave of William Patrick Adam, the Governor of Madras Presidency, who died in Ooty in 1881 will not fail to catch your eye.

The magic of Ooty is not so much the specific tourist destination; it is, in fact, the long lovely walks that it offers. Wherever you go the serenity of the Nilgiris will be all around you. Specially the strategic points from where one could either see Ooty or the view all around, like Snowdon, Ketty Valley, the Wenlock Downs and, of course, Doddabetta. Further, you can hire a horse for a slightly more thrilling excursion in and around town. The eucalyptuses are quite a part of the Ooty landscape. They even fuel a small oil industry, so it is common to find eucalyptus oil in the shops at Ooty.

History
The first inhabitants of this land were a tribe called Todas who had been living here long before the British came in the early nineteenth century. But the credit for modernising Udhagamandalam and making it accessible goes to the British who constructed the first railway line in the area and made it the summer capital of the Madras Presidency. Even today the ambiance of the Raj lingers in certain places like the Club where snooker was invented by a subaltern named Neville Chamberlain. The Nilgiri Library with its rare and valuable collection of books on Udhagamandalam and St. Stephen's Church which was Udhagamandalam's first church are reminiscent of the Raj. The cemetery near the church has the oldest British tombstones and has graves of John Sullivan's wife and daughter, among other prominent personalities.