Where is the 2026 Kurinji Garden gate? Two answers, 6.4 km apart

The neelakurinji flowers gregariously once in twelve years across these grasslands and then dies back, and 2026 is a kurinji year. On 24 August the Kerala Forest Department opened a paid Kurinji Garden on the slopes of Chokramudi. If you are driving out from Munnar to see it, there is one thing worth settling first, because the reporting does not agree with itself.

What the 16–17 August reports say

Onmanorama, in English, on 16 August: the site is "near the Devikulam Forest Department range office on the Munnar–Bodimettu stretch of the Kochi–Dhanushkodi National Highway". Manorama, in Malayalam, on 16 and again on 17 August: the entrance gateway is on that same stretch, near the Devikulam forest range office. Madhyamam’s travel guide says the same. The Devikulam Range Officer is named as ED Arunkumar.

We measured that office. It is at 10.0646, 77.1005 — OpenStreetMap has it as "Office of the Range Officer" and Google as "Forest Range Office Devikulam", 24 m apart, so there is no doubt about where it is. From the Lockhart Gap pin that is 3.93 km in a straight line and 6.4 km by road.

What the opening-day reports say

Onmanorama, 24 August: "A special entrance area has been set up near the Gap Road for the visitors." Manorama, in Malayalam, the same day: entry is through a new gate near Gap Road, and the garden was opened at 11 a.m. by CFC D K Vinod. Gap Road is here — the lay-by this page is pinned to, where the Chokramudi trekking counter stands.

The tiebreaker nobody has noticed

The earlier reports also describe the traffic arrangement, and it points squarely at the earlier location: private vehicles and taxis are not to proceed beyond Munnar town, and visitors are to park there and take a special KSRTC shuttle "to the Devikulam entrance". A shuttle described as running from Munnar to Devikulam is not a shuttle to Gap Road, which is 6.4 km further on.

And there is a third record to rule out. Google carries a place called "Kurinji Garden" with twelve ratings at 10.143079, 77.036496, on the Eravikulam National Park road — 15.1 km from this pin and 25.4 km by road. That is a different place again and it is not what any of these reports are describing.

What to do about it

Ask which gate your ticket is for at the point of sale, and do not assume the Forest Department trekking counter in the Lockhart Gap lay-by sells the kurinji ticket. Nothing published says that it does — the reports describe a gate that was "set up", which is a new structure rather than an existing counter. The two products have different hours and different tariffs, and the summit trek runs from 05:30 while the garden runs 07:00 to 16:00.