Coonoor

South India · Tamil Nadu

Coonoor, Tamil Nadu

Quieter Nilgiri tea country · ~70 km from Coimbatore, ~20 km from Ooty

Plan this trip

Getting there

By road

~70 km from Coimbatore, ~20 km from Ooty

By rail

Mettupalayam, ~34-45 km (Coimbatore Junction, ~70-75 km, has more connections)

By air

Coimbatore International Airport, ~45-70 km

Best time to visit

October to March — crisp air, clear valley views

Don't miss

Sim's Park

Dolphin's Nose

Lamb's Rock

Highfield Tea Estate

Things to do

Toy-train ride to Ooty

Tea tastings

Colonial-era walks

Where to eat

La Belle Vie

Café Diem

The Culinarium bakehouse

Sources: open-meteo, wikimedia, Photo: Robinder Uppal · CC BY-SA 3.0

What to pack

Woollens for evenings, walking shoes for estate paths

A quieter corner

Hidden Valley beyond the tea estates — ask a local driver

About Coonoor

Hills

Where it is

Coonoor is a hill town in Tamil Nadu's Nilgiris district, at about 1,850 m on the south-eastern edge of the Nilgiri plateau, at the head of the ghat road and railway that climb from Mettupalayam.

History

Coonoor grew in the 19th century as a British hill station and tea-planting centre on the way up to Ooty, and the Nilgiri Mountain Railway reached it from Mettupalayam in 1899. Its botanical garden, Sim's Park, is named after J. D. Sim, secretary of the Madras Club in the 1870s, and the neighbouring cantonment of Wellington is home to the Madras Regimental Centre and the Defence Services Staff College.

People

Tamil is the main language, with Badaga and Malayalam also widely spoken, and many families work on the tea estates or grow tea on their own smallholdings. The Badaga, a farming community long settled in the Nilgiris, cultivate tea and vegetables on the slopes around the town.

Known for

The rack railway climb from Mettupalayam
Sim's Park botanical garden
Tea estates and tea tastings
Dolphin's Nose and Lamb's Rock viewpoints

Did you know?

Between Mettupalayam and Coonoor the Nilgiri Mountain Railway grips a toothed rack rail to climb the steep slopes, making it the only rack railway in India.