Kodanad View Point

A rock pillar and viewpoint east of Kotagiri associated with a local Rangaswamy temple legend, offering views over the Nilgiri plateau. Sources place it differently: OpenStreetMap maps the cliff at one point and Wikipedia gives another about 4.5 km further east, while Wikipedia's own text calls it 20 km from Kotagiri, which matches neither.

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.

Elk Falls, also called Uyilatty Falls after the village beside it, drops in the hills north of Kotagiri; the district administration lists it among the town's waterfalls and the usual published figure is about 7 km out. The fall itself is on no map we can read, so the marker here sits on Uyilatty village, 7.4 km from the bus stand by routed road, and not on the water.

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.

A twin-tiered waterfall near Kotagiri, one of the tallest in the Nilgiris, formed on the Kallar river. Tamil Nadu Tourism and the district administration both say it takes its name from the wife of M.D. Cockburn, the planter credited with bringing coffee to Kotagiri, though the older form St Catherine's Falls was already in use.

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

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 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.

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.

The memorial of the Madras Regiment, the oldest infantry regiment of the Indian Army, raised in 1758 and at Wellington since February 1947. The Cantonment Board's own history places the Defence Services Staff College directly in front of it, which makes this small square the centre of military Wellington rather than the barracks themselves; the ground around it is cantonment land, and what you may photograph is decided at the gate, not by the memorial.