Places to visit in Ooty
These are the places Ooty trips are built from. Each trip page lists exactly which of them it covers, and a private trip can swap one for another.
- The Nilgiri Mountain Railway: The UNESCO-listed toy train; the Mettupalayam to Ooty run takes five hours, and the Ooty to Coonoor leg is the easy hour-long version.
- Government Botanical Garden: 55 acres laid out in 1848, with the fossil tree and the May flower show.
- Ooty Lake and the boathouse: Pedal and row boats on the 1824 lake, busiest in the afternoon.
- Doddabetta Peak: The highest point in the Nilgiris at 2,637 m, with a telescope house; go early before the mist.
- Rose Garden: Over 20,000 varieties on a terraced slope above the town, at their best from May to July.
- Coonoor: Sim's Park, Dolphin's Nose and Lamb's Rock: The quieter hill town 20 km down, with the tea estates and the valley viewpoints.
- A tea factory and tea museum: The processing floor and a tasting; most are on the Coonoor road.
- Pykara falls and lake: 19 km out, a boat ride and two falls in a shola forest, on the way to Mudumalai.
Opening hours and tickets
The Nilgiri Mountain Railway's daily train leaves Mettupalayam in the early morning, around 7 am, and reaches Ooty around noon, stopping at Coonoor; the shorter Coonoor to Ooty runs go through the day, and seats sell out weeks ahead in April, May and the December holidays, so book on IRCTC as soon as your dates are fixed. The Government Botanical Garden, the Rose Garden and the boathouse open from morning to early evening every day, and Doddabetta's viewpoint is best before the mid-morning mist. Each charges a small entry ticket, with extra for cameras at some; timings shift in the May flower-show season, so a trip captain checks them the week you travel.
What to eat
Ooty is the place for homemade chocolate, sold by weight in the shops around Commercial Road, and for Nilgiri tea straight from the factories on the Coonoor road. The local bakeries make varkey, a flaky biscuit-bread eaten with tea.