Trip to Ooty in Tamilnadu, The Queen of Hills and everything you need!

It was second half of May and was planning to get onto a Duster drive… Well the travel bug in me was itching to get behind the wheel and drive to a lovely location.

Started exploring options among- Ooty, Aaraku, Madhikeri, Coorg and was a difficult choice as each had their own uniqueness.

Was looking for that differentiator and looked upon the weather man for inputs and the answer unfolded before me and it was Ooty.

Now that it was Ooty should we really go there particularly with the 2nd of June being a holiday in Hyderabad (Telangana Formation Day) most of Hyderabad IT professionals were planning for the same place… I could already relate to 10 families planning their Ooty trip.

With this in mind, was exploring should it still be Ooty or any nearby pleasant destination was the other question lingering in my mind.

That was when a friend referred Kethi and a homestay there. Well this was a great choice by date and I did not regret the decision.

Having made the decision and booking for hotel, did some checks with Renault on the health of Duster. We started on our journey on the 31st May around 6.30am.

This was post air checks, engine, oil, black mats to beat heat, change of headlamps to Osram.

We took the Hyderabad – Bengaluru – Mysuru – Masinagudi – Ooty – Kethi route and I bet if you are driving down, you are in for some mesmerising moments with clouds flying with you at Masinagudi ghat road navigating the 36 hairpins.

We reached Bengaluru around 1.30pm and had a lunch break at city outskirts – Hotel Pranav, and then started on our journey to Mysuru with a target to reach before sunset and were able to make it around 6.30pm which was all in all a 12 hour drive including breaks.

Had some local sightings before retiring for the day to wake up on Day Two to start on our journey to Ooty at around 8am.