Well, one of the most common yet important things people do while visiting the Queen of hill stations, Ooty, is to have the childlike experience of travelling in a toy train because that's one ritual no one wants to miss in Ooty! With picturesque views of hills and forests, the route itself is all enough to make people go crazy about the experience especially when you know that route is at higher altitudes. I wasn't an exception in feeling thrilled about the toy train like a kid. Indeed, everyone becomes a kid in and around the toy train and I witnessed it pretty clearly when I was there.
I thought of skipping off visiting Coonoor on my second day of the trip as I was exhausted the day before visiting around five tourist locations in Ooty. But when all my pals were getting ready in the early morning, I thought of moving myself out of the cosy bed at my stay. I decided to join them and didn't want to be a spoiled sport. I decked up in Yellow like a sunflower.
After everyone got ready, we courted our car to the railway station of Ooty. It is a small railway station and comes under Nilgiri Mountain Railways of India and is coded UAM which is named after the heritage name of Udhagamandalam. It is a cosy railway station with passengers throughout the day who courts toy train and other trains too. Generally, per day, three toy trains are available from Ooty to Coonoor to Mettupalayam. We had a plan of visiting Coonoor by toy train in the morning at 9 0 clock train and returning from the same toy train from Coonoor in the evening at 4 o clock. Hence, we had to step out of our stay early to reach the station on time.
After reaching, we found out that the train won't start for a good half an hour. We were starving in the morning and decided to have an early and quick breakfast at the railway canteen of the station itself. There we ordered idlis, vadas, dosas, teas and coffees. Indeed, we all had a typical south Indian breakfast with authentic Tamilnadu special sambar. It was amazing to have my hot breakfast amidst those chilling temperatures when the sun was shining on my face providing all the warmth I needed.
After eating, we all left the canteen and walked towards our second-class compartment where we were allotted our respective seats. It's exactly like a toy train and I guess it's also made by keeping kids in mind. Regrettably, the seats are congested and it was a little uncomfortable initially but later on, we didn't care much about it because of the views around.
We have clicked way too many pictures like a mad gang who never courted a train before but it was all about gathering as many memories as we could. So we all got captured before the train started. And after a few minutes, the train left the station. That was when the real fun began. I sat at a window side and peacefully witnessed exotic greenery by having my pal Kuldeep beside me talking about how little things matter the most. That nature had all the powers to heal. More than seeing through the lens of my camera, I focused on witnessing through my naked eyes. But I also managed to record throughout the entire route. There were tall trees, grasslands, terrace farms, steeps, valleys, hill ranges, forest ranges and mountains with glimpses of lakes and waterfalls. It was a wholesome package of nature.
The railway distance from Ooty station to Coonoor station is 19km but it takes around one hour to journey in a toy train by halting at cute little hill stations of Lovedale, Ketti, Aravankadu and Wellington. All these stations look small but cosy enough with floral plants and tall trees with peace around them. Lovedale and Wellington are famous for their lakes and people often visit them during their trips to Ooty. After crossing all these stations, we reached Coonoor in exactly one hour. It was one of a kind journey on one fresh morning in Ooty where people were excited and stayed enthusiastic about the journey. Even though we thought of sleeping on the train, we couldn't as the people's vibe made us wide awake throughout the journey.
Even after getting down from the train at the Coonoor station, we still spent around an hour at the station as we all were boosted up with the energy supplied by the nature and ended up clicking way too many kiddish pictures at good spots at the train, in the station, at the railway board and with too many backdrops. We didn't care about the attention we were driving towards us and also the time, because we only decided to visit one botanical garden and enjoy nature's lush without tiring ourselves by visiting random spots.
We went to Sim's Park to explore the flora and spent almost the whole morning over there followed by lunch in the afternoon. And then by the time we passed our lazy day at Coonoor, our return train to Ooty was about to arrive at the Coonoor station. We were all feeling drowsy, lazy and sleep deprived. Also, the excitement for the toy train slowly gets reduced. Finally, we reached the station and found out our train was on time to arrive. After a short waiting time, we were back to the toy train at our respective seats in our compartments. The train looks authentically British-Indian era built and that's the speciality where people get to witness how Ooty was one of the main bases of the British for the import and export of Tea, coffee, eucalyptus oil, chocolates and many more.
Nilgiri Mountain railways plays important role in connecting various hilly areas, villages and towns of the mountain and forest ranges of Tamilnadu. But in this particular route, you find people from various nooks and corners of India visiting the hill station. The return journey was also fun because of the people. I couldn't sleep because in the evenings during the golden hour amidst those decreasing temperatures, the whole route looks even more beautiful.
Hence, I ended up capturing some beautiful sunset photos and videos of trees passing by, turns and twists of the railway line, and the stations in between. Most of all, I loved how the station Ketti looked in the evening because throughout the halt I was just looking out at the small station with its master holding red and green flags to signal the trains passing by. It was an amazing childhood nostalgic scene for me. There were many natural-filled exotic moments for me in those two hours of the to-and-fro journey. Finally, we reached around 5 in the evening to Ooty station. Also, it was getting cold and all we needed was a glass of tea. So we rushed to the same canteen where we had breakfast to order teas and biscuits. It was wholesome for all of us and we thought we would take a rest after going back to our stay. But the night was young and we had different plans!
