Trip to Kodaikanal – The Queen of Hill stations

Trip to Kodaikanal – Queen of Hill stations

This post is about our travel to Kodaikanal -The princess of Hill stations
Hills and mountains always keep mesmerizing to me. So, we always keep looking for a chance to travel to hill stations and spend some time in the lap of nature, away from the hustle and bustle of city.

I’ve of course travelled some of the hill stations (like Munnar, Ooty, Ponmudi etc) but Kodaikanal is the best I would say of all the hill-stations.  Just sharing my travel experience to Kodaikanal -in the lap of mother nature.

Kodaiknal is the city in Dindigul district of Tamil Nadu. The nearby hill stations like Ooty and Munnar have been highly commercialized, but Kodaikanal still enjoys the advantage of being a picturesque hill-station. 

Kodaikanal mostly encompass of a close community and other basic infrastructure. There are some beautiful visiting spots and the economy is mostly driven by the hospitality industry.

We were a team of 4 plus 2 children, so we decided to drive Kodaikanal by car. We started early morning at 4Ó clock from Trivandrum and reached the destination by 4Ó clock in the evening. Staring on panoramic views and scenery on the way mostly the travel was through highway. 

The way was very exciting and refreshing view all around. Road till Kodaikanal was very good, definitely we enjoyed each and every bit of driving. Even with regular driving skill you can enjoy a lot, as the ghats even is not so dangerous.

Now we reached to a place where a board indicating Kodaikanal 49 KM. The ghat road started from here and I already had indicated -this ghat road is not so dangerous and is easy to drive. 

All 49 km stretch was very scenic, contains full of greenery valleys and sights of hills and clouds hanging on the top of the hills. On the way you will find a number of water falls and valley view points.

Finally, we reached our resort – Hotel PADMA at 5pm which was well within the town. The trip took about 12 hours including lot of stoppings and breaks in between.  
The resort has a lawn and very well maintained. Further behind the lawn there were rooms which are open to the city and mountain view. 

The Lodge was awesome -Great hospitality and Friendly Management. I’ld recommend this place for anyone who visits Kodaikanal. After checking-in we decided to have dinner in a restaurant which is close to the resort.

Coaker’s walk , Kodaikanal
After resort exploration, on the next day we went for sightseeing. We went to the Coaker’s walk which is a very famous tourist destination in Kodaikanal. It was constructed by Lt.Coaker in 1872. It is a long paved pedestrian path running along the edge of steep slopes on the southern side of Kodaikanal.

On a sunny day one can view the deep valley and panoramic views of the plains. We completed nearly one KM walk and finally settled ourselves on the bench placed on the side of walkway where once can enjoy scenic view of the valley and plain mountains. The valley was covered with layers of cloud, but it was a nice experience.

Pillars rock
Pillars rock is a very nice valley where two rocks are standing side-by-side. View of the valley was very beautiful from this place. It was not a very cloudy day, so we were able to see Pillars rock very clearly.

                                      
Green Valley view
Again this is a view point with excellent panoramic view of the plains. There were lots of shops there, ranging from woolen clothes to wood crafts to fruits. 

Kodai lake
A big lake in between the Kodai town. Rowboats and pedalos can be hired at the Kodaikanal Boat Club. Horses and bicycles can be hired beside the lake and the path round the lake skirts the periphery of this lovely lake is a favorite walk for the locals and tourists alike. 

We preferred to hire the pedal boats to do a complete roam around the lake. On the way between the above places, we also visited some spots with nice tall trees standing in rows. They were very good spots for taking snaps.

Pine Forest
The pine forest is one among the preserved treasure of Kodaikanal which would mesmerize the tourists by its ambiance. This is the gift of mother nature especially for those who love photography. The pine forest was comparatively crowded than we expected and there were lot of local vendors selling fresh carrots (with leaves) and fruits can be found at the entrance of the forest. 

                                             
Finally on day 3 we decided to say goodbye to Kodaikanal and to start to Trivandrum. We decided to start around 8:00 AM after breakfast so that we could reach Trivandrum by night. Again back to home journey with completely refreshed mind and breathtaking views of the tea estates in Idukki dist.

Again couldn’t refrain myself from taking some snaps of the valley during our return trip. This was the end of one more memorable and amazing journey!