First Vacation of this year - Family Fun at Ooty, The Queen of Hills

Two vacations a year!....that’s our plan to relax and renew. A hill station vacation during the scorching summer is nothing but an escape to heaven. Our little fun trip was totally unplanned even though Ooty was on our vacation list for this year. We even speculated few other get away spots. But in a sudden spur of the moment, on a warm Sunday evening exactly a week before our vacation, we decided to spend our Ugadi holidays in ooty. Without wasting a moment, we called up The Sherlock to book their best cottage. Unfortunately they were overbooked, but the front desk lady, did refer The Kings Cliff which is also a part of their group of hotels. So we booked a cottage with the best view cottage at The Kings Cliff – The Hamlet – for 3 nights, 4 days – 8^th till 11^th April 2013. Surprised by the name of the cottage - Oh! Yes, the Littlearth group has adopted Shakespeare as the theme for Kings Cliff. And! We decided to travel by our car and we even booked a driver with the Bangalore Drivers on the same day to drive us around the entire trip.

We were all packed up and ready by early Monday morning – 8^th April. The driver was very prompt and arrived at our place, exactly by 10 minutes to 5 in the morning and we left for our fun trip by 5.45 a.m. Since it was an early morning drive, all of us were fresh and enjoyed the entire drive. We stopped at Mysore for breakfast for about 30 minutes and then continued on. We travelled through the Bandipur and Mudumalai forests and were lucky to spot an elephant family other than the spotted deers and monkeys that make the forest drive through fun and interesting. Once we were out of the Mudumalai Forest Zone, we had two choices before us to continue our trip – via Masinagudi or via Gudulur. We were told that Gudulur route is about 17 kms more than the other one. So we decided on the Masinagudi route. Our opinion of this route – AVOID. The roads were very bad and narrow, there is hardly enough space even one car to drive. We had to stop every time for the vehicles from opposite direction. There are way too many hairpin bends – 36 to be precise and all of them scary too. Every turn was an adventure. We had to drive very slowly throughout the way up hill which added up to the time we saved on taking the short distant route. And so we reached our destination after an exciting and adventurous 6 hrs long journey – The Kings Cliff by 11.45 a.m. The weather was very pleasant. Sunny yet not hot, Cloudy yet no rain, cool yet not cold. Gosh! It was amazing and the view from our cottage was terrific too.

By 12.30 noon we were all checked in and settled. We decided to lunch at The Earl’s Court restaurant in The Kings Cliff itself. The ambience of the restaurant was commendable with some antique paintings and historical facts about the cottage. The service, the quality and the quantity of the food were good too. The food was excellent and flavorsome, but the price – we felt was quite high. The restaurant has Indian, Italian, Mexican and Continental menu, but, ne thing, I don’t understand is that the restaurant is in Ooty, Tamilnadu and I could not find a single south Indian menu in the entire Indian Menu section. I wonder, why and how could the management think that only North Indian food menu will suffice the entire Indian Cuisine. I was so disappointed; after all, I was planning for a mouthwatering South Indian Meal Menu. So, for the rest of our stay, we had to cover our lunch and dinner at other restaurants. The complimentary breakfast spread, which I have to say, we enjoyed not only because it came free but it was very detailed, fresh and tasteful. The overall service, ambience, view, front desk, landscape and the managers were quite exceptional.

Although we did not have an itinerary plan of our sightseeing trip, we wanted to cover the important places. So after our little chat with the front desk at The Kings Cliff, we decided to head out to the man-made artificial lake and the first ever thread garden. We had fun in the motor boat, the toy train ride near the boat house. Although my little prince was very tired, he enjoyed all the rides including the horse riding near the lake. He is going to be 3 next month and I have seen some adults who are scared to even go near the horse. It seemed he is a natural at horse riding. He was patting and talking to the horse as he was riding. I am happy we said yes to the nice family photo in minutes, offered by the professional photographers at the tourist spots. The charge for these photos is very minimal and they are a treasure to keep, with lot of happy memories to it. We spent some time inside the Thread Garden, the first of its kind. It was amazing and interesting to see the handmade plants and flowers that were wrapped with thread.  The next day we covered the Pine forest, the 6^th Mile and the 9^th Mile shooting spots, the Pykara boat ride and the Doddabetta Peak. We heard that the water was very less in the Pykara Water Falls and so we ditched it. The Pykara boat ride (6 seater) was wonderful with nice scenic views all around. There is a speed motor boat ride too that looked awesome. We were too tired to try that after a daylong adventure in horse riding and a steep walk inside the pine forest.  Doddabetta is a must visit peak. Surrounded by ranges and ranges of mountains and hills, the sunset view at Doddobetta is really incredible and awesome. On the third day, we hopped on to The Heritage Train / Toy train ride from ooty to coonoor.. The general class ticket cost us only Rs.5/- each and the train was maintained very well. It was very neat and not crowded at all. We grabbed the corner seats on to the opposite side of the entrance to the train because that is the side that has breath taking views all along till coonoor. This heritage train ride is something one should not miss on their trip to ooty. We had arranged for the driver to pick us up at the coonoor station from where we went to the Government’s Rose Garden. Beautifully landscaped with a variety of roses that you could not even keep count, the rose garden is a real feast for the eyes although, we could not see much since the blooming season was just starting. And! So we ended our sights seeing at ooty to pack up for back to Bangalore the next day.

On 11^th April, after 4 days of great fun and relaxation, after our breakfast, we drove back to Bangalore via Gudulur, cautiously avoiding the Masinagudi route. Since we left a little after 10.30, we felt the scorching heat of the sun throughout, thanks to the SC order to ban the tinted glass. We had to take couple of extra breaks under the shades of trees to refresh ourselves. And so we arrived finally at quarter to 6. Yes, it took 7 long hours to come back. Gosh! We wished we could have spent some more days at the Queen of Hills. We miss Ooty. All thanks to God, we had wonderful evening showers at Bangalore on the same day. Guess it was Bangalore reminding us how awesome it used to be a few years back with evening showers every day and a cool and breezy weather all around the year. Yes, we miss that old Bangalore too.