Catherine Falls

A rocky outcrop near Coonoor offering sweeping views of the Nilgiri escarpment, Catherine Falls, and the plains below.

A working tea factory 9.5 km east of the Coonoor bus stand on the estate road toward the viewpoints, where the leaf from the surrounding slopes is withered, rolled, oxidised and graded. Coonoor has been the administrative centre of the Nilgiri tea trade since the first plantation in these hills was established beside it in 1854.

A viewpoint near Coonoor overlooking tea and coffee plantations and the Coimbatore plains, named after a former collector of the region.

Highfield is a long-established tea estate and working factory near Coonoor that offers guided tours explaining the tea-making process from plucking to packaging. Visitors can walk the plantation slopes and buy estate-fresh Nilgiri tea, making it one of Coonoor's popular tea-tourism stops.

This restored stone bungalow at Kannerimukku near Kotagiri was one of the earliest European residences in the Nilgiris, associated with John Sullivan, the British collector who opened up the hills from 1819. It now houses a memorial and small museum on Nilgiri history run by a heritage trust, 3.4 km from the Kotagiri bus stand by routed road.

Ralliah (Rallia) Dam sits on the Coonoor-Kattabettu-Kotagiri road and was built in 1914 as a catchment supplying drinking water to Coonoor and Kotagiri. Ringed by eucalyptus forest and reached by a short walk, it is a peaceful, little-visited spot popular for gentle trekking.

A protected shola forest reserve on Kotagiri's eastern edge, known for birdwatching and for sightings of endemic species such as the Nilgiri wood pigeon. It was designated a Ramsar Wetland of International Importance on 24 May 2023, covering 116.01 hectares.

A vaccine institute on sixteen acres above the town, founded after Lily Pakenham Walsh died of hydrophobia in 1902 without reaching treatment in time. One lakh rupees of Henry Phipps's gift to Lord Curzon paid for it, Coonoor was chosen for its cool and equitable climate, and it began work on 6 April 1907. It has made antirabies vaccine ever since and DPT vaccines since 1982. A manufacturer, not a clinic.

A 12-hectare botanical park in Coonoor established in 1874, laid out in irregular Japanese style with a small lake and rare tree species.

A garrison club that dates itself from the brick cricket pavilion put up for the troops in 1873, though it only took the name Wellington Gymkhana in 1916, and it now runs an eighteen-hole hill golf course at about six thousand feet. Its own history records a race course here before Ooty's longer track was built, nine-hole golf, polo and rugby by the 1930s, its first Indian member in 1943, and the fact that the whole club stands on military land and pays a yearly rent to the Defence Department.

Law's Falls lies about 5 km from Coonoor on the Coonoor-Mettupalayam ghat road, where the Coonoor river drops through a wooded gorge. It is named after Colonel Law, who built the Coonoor ghat road in the 1830s. Surrounded by dense greenery, it is a relatively uncrowded picnic spot.

The junction a kilometre above the bus stand where the town's shops give out and the estate roads begin, and the second place in Coonoor to find an auto. The tea slopes above it run up to Highfield, and the road east from here is the one that leads to Lamb's Rock and Dolphin's Nose.