Recently, we went for a 2-day trip to Ooty to relax and rewind over a long weekend. Ooty is a beautiful place filled with picturesque landscapes. Even the drive from Bangalore to Ooty is very scenic. I’ve always loved going on road trips, it offers a unique blend of freedom, exploration, and adventure. Not only is the journey amazing, but I also love taking short hiatuss for breakfast or tea during the journey.
First Things First
The best time to visit Ooty is from October to February. The temperature is usually a bit cooler since it’s a hill station, so make sure to carry light woolens whenever you’re planning to travel. We started at 8 AM in the morning. The drive distance from Bangalore to Ooty is around 270km, which takes almost 6 hours to complete.
There are two routes, either of which you can take, however, I would recommend you to take the Gudalur route if you’ve never driven on terraineous route in the past. Else take the Kalihatti route, which is very scenic but has around 36 hairpin bends, but this might be something where you’ll have to be constantly cautious around the bends and slippery patches of the roads. So you’ll have to be an experienced driver to drive through this.
Route: Bangalore-Mysore-Gudlupet-Bandipur-Mudumalai-Kalihatti-Ooty
Journey
Our first stop was at A2B on the Bangalore-Mysore Expressway, where we had a simple yet delicious breakfast. We also took a pit stop at New Malabar Restaurant at Kurahatti for a wholesome lunch. On our way, we crossed Bandipur National Park and Mudumalai Tiger Reserve. There are certain rules for the vehicles passing by these National Reserves, such as you cannot get outside of your vehicle and no one is allowed to give away food to any animal in case you are lucky enough to catch a sight of it. Although we drove slowly in anticipation of getting to see tigers, like always we were lucked out. Fortunately, we did capture a few deer and elephants on the way.
We passed through Willow Forests, which looked like the set of some romantic or creepy movie both at the same time. We finally reached our AirBnb at around 5 pm just before it was getting dusky. We booked a very secluded yet pretty property in Ooty. Reaching there was slightly a bit of a challenge though because of the rough roads.
Since we were pretty tired that day, we just ordered food, ate, and called it a day.
Day 1
After a sumptuous breakfast, we left to visit Emerald Lake and Avalanche Lake viewpoints. It’s around 28-30 km away from Ooty, so took us around an hour and a half to reach the point. Visitors can enjoy activities such as trekking and camping, making it an ideal destination for nature enthusiasts and adventure seekers. We walked through the forest and sat beside the lake for some time to watch the day go by. There are a lot of monkeys here though, so you must be very careful. I would not advise carrying any eatable or loose items. Even keep your phones inside your bag. After that, we went to visit Emerald Lake and Dam, which had a breathtaking appeal as well.
We went to have our lunch in a very popular restaurant in Ooty called Earls Secret located at Kings Cliff in Ooty. This is a very pretty and Pinteresty food joint. We had a tasty meal and took many photos. I would highly recommend this place.
After having lunch, we went to visit the famous Ooty Botanical Garden. This is a place that will easily take 3-4 hours to cover entirely. So plan your trip accordingly. After that, we went to visit the Pykara Dam. The ticket price here is Rs 30 for adults. This is a very scenic place where we were able to spot Bison and deer as well. It’s surrounded by lush greenery and cascading waterfalls. This place is just a postcard-perfect spot and I would put this on the must-visit spot in Ooty List.
Since it was getting dark, we went for a hot chocolate at Moddys Chocolate. This is yet another place that I would highly recommend. On our way back home, we picked up some dry food and cuppa noodles from the local supermarket and then retired back to our place. Since it was quite an eventful day, so we were very tired and slept early.
Day 2
Today we started our day with a healthy breakfast at the “Yellow Door Cafe”. It’s a very peaceful and serene place with decent options. After spending some time here, we went to explore the iconic Toy Train in Ooty. We took the 9:15 am train from Udagamandalam (Ooty) to Coonoor. This is a 1 hr 5 min ride, but since we had to return for our check-out from the AirBnb, we got down at Aravankadu and took a return ride. It was quite different yet interesting to ride on the narrow-gauge rails and you should give it a go once. After collecting our luggage, we drove to visit the famous Tea and Chocolate factory in Ooty.
It’s a captivating journey that gives insights into tea and chocolate production. We paid Rs 30 each to visit the Chocolate production line, they also gave us a chocolate bar each along with a tour for tasting. You can choose Milk, Dark and White chocolates. To take a tour of the tea production line, we paid around Rs 10 each, it was quite fascinating to see how the tea is plucked, crushed, dried and then processed, and finally packaged. We were also offered different varieties of tea for tasting. Although we just tasted Masala and Elaichi tea, there were other options as well such as Green Tea, White Tea, Black Tea etc.
After having this amazing experience we bought some chocolates from their merchandise store and returned back to Bangalore.
Hope you find this blog informative to plan your trip to Ooty.