What to expect
Pykara Lake
The reservoir on the Pykara river 22.2 km from the Ooty bus stand by routed road, with a boathouse running motorboat trips over water ringed by pine, shola and grassland; gaur graze the banks. The river above it is held sacred by the Toda, and the falls two kilometres downstream are part of the same site.
Practical guide
Plan Pykara Lake
Who's going?Tailor Pykara Lake to your trip
Typedam
Nearest baseOoty
DistrictThe Nilgiris
Best timeOctober to March is the cooler, drier…
Time neededAbout an hour
Entry₹20
Places to visit23→Listed businesses25→Pykara Lake is planned from Ooty, one of the travel bases in The Nilgiris district. Use Ooty for stays, food and local transport, then plan this place as a focused stop.
Getting there
How to visit
- Base yourself in Ooty or nearby in The Nilgiris, then confirm the last-mile route locally before travel.
- If access depends on temple, museum or seasonal rules, check on the day before you go.
Timing
Best time
October to March is the cooler, drier season in the Cauvery delta.
Weather in Pykara LakeSeasonal guide
Live forecast loads in your browser.
Today at Pykara Lake
Sunrise6:14 am
Sunset6:34 pm
Golden hour best light5:34 pm–6:34 pm
Blue hour after sunset6:34 pm–6:59 pm
Sun sets toward compass bearingW · 279°
Moon tonight🌖 Waning gibbous · 83%
South-west monsoon. June to September brings heavy rain to Tamil Nadu. Trails, falls and ghat roads can be slippery, swollen or closed at short notice, and forest departments sometimes suspend access. Check locally on the day before you travel.
Sun and moon are calculated for this location and shown in IST. Photography windows are the hour around sunrise and sunset; the sunset bearing is degrees clockwise from true north. Moon phase is accurate to about half a day.
Photos
Pykara Lake in pictures
Stay · eat · do · rent · see · shop
Stays, food & things to do near Pykara Lake
Verified hotels, homestays, restaurants, experiences, sights, shops and rentals around Pykara Lake — commission-free, with direct contact. Filter by what you need.
18 places to stay near Pykara Lake
2 places to eat near Pykara Lake
1 rental near Pykara Lake
4 places to shop near Pykara Lake
T
The Culinarium
Where to eat
Restaurant
The CulinariumA bakery and dining room whose own description of its cooking is European. Expect modern dishes alongside country-style classics.
Commission-freeView details
P
Place to Bee
Where to eat
Restaurant
Place to BeeA restaurant in the town centre. Its own page can no longer be read, so the number below comes from the open map data rather than from the business.
Commission-freeView details
Book with the place itself. India’s cyber-crime coordination centre warned in April 2025 that convincing copies of hotel and pilgrimage booking sites are being pushed through sponsored search and social ads, taking payment for rooms the property never hears about. Every listing here links to the business’s own contact details and its own Google or Bing profile — we take no commission and sit in nobody’s payment path. If a booking page reached you through an ad, check the address bar against the property’s own site before you pay. Fraud can be reported on cybercrime.gov.in or on 1930.
Ranked
The best of Ooty, ranked
Pykara Lake sits in Ooty, and these rank everything verified across the town rather than this one spot — built from the same listings shown above, ordered by the strength of the source evidence behind each entry rather than by anyone's star score. Every card shows how many places are really on it. Nobody pays to appear.
Across the whole of Ooty
Ranked guides
Top experiences around Ooty
10 more places around Ooty, each worth a day of its own.
damOoty Lake
An artificial lake created in 1824 by John Sullivan, the founder of Ooty, now used for boating amid eucalyptus-lined banks.
parkGovernment Botanical Garden, Ooty
A terraced garden of 55 acres below Doddabetta, run by the Tamil Nadu Horticulture Department, holding a fossilised tree trunk reckoned at 20 million years old and hosting the flower show every May. Its founding year is published two ways, 1848 and 1897.
viewpointDoddabetta Peak
The highest peak in the Nilgiris and in Tamil Nadu, with a telescope house at the top. Three arms of the government publish three different heights for it — 2,623 m, 2,636 m and 2,637 m.
parkGovernment Rose Garden, Ooty
Four hectares in five terraces on the slopes of Elk Hill, with more than 3,000 varieties of roses on the district administration’s own count, and an International Rose Society award for the best rose garden in South Asia in 2006.
waterfallPykara Falls
2.0 km · 25 min walk
The Pykara river drops here in two stages of 55 and 61 metres, on the Mysuru road 22.5 km from the Ooty bus stand by routed road — the municipality publishes it as about 20 km. The river above the falls is held sacred by the Toda.
damAvalanche Lake
A reservoir among sholas and grassland on the road toward Upper Bhavani, 22.5 km from the Ooty bus stand by routed road — the district and the municipality both publish it as 28 km. It sits inside a protected forest zone where access is controlled, so check before setting out.
churchSt. Stephen's Church, Ooty
Consecrated in 1830, this is the oldest church in the Nilgiris, built partly from timber salvaged from Tipu Sultan's summer palace in Srirangapatna.
museumTea Museum and Factory, Ooty
A working tea factory near Ooty with a small museum explaining tea-processing history and a shop selling estate teas.
waterfallKalhatti Falls
9.2 km · ~15 min by cab
A waterfall on the Ooty-Gudalur road near Kalhatti village, plunging beside an old Shiva shrine set into the rock.
damEmerald Lake, Ooty
A quiet reservoir near Avalanche in the upper Nilgiris, surrounded by tea plantations and sholas, less visited than Ooty Lake.
Roampedia is commission-free — own or know a stay, eatery, guide or shop near Pykara Lake? List it and it appears here once verified.
Add a nearby businessBefore you go
Pykara Lake — at a glance
Timings9:00 AM - 5:00 PM daily
Best timeApr-Jun and Sep-Nov; avoid heavy monsoon Jul-Aug
Entry price
- Indian adult
- ₹20
Fees change without notice. Check the current rate at the counter.
Entry: Rs 20 entry, boating extra (indicative — confirm on site)
Getting here
How to reach Pykara Lake
Nearest railway: Udagamandalam (UAM), ~19 km; nearest airport: Coimbatore (CJB) ~103 km
Getting around Pykara Lake
We have not assessed physical access at this place yet. Across India, step-free routes, handrails and accessible toilets are the exception rather than the rule, and pavements are often interrupted — if step-free access matters to you, contact the site or a local operator before committing to the trip.
If you need help at Pykara Lake
112All emergencies (police · fire · medical)The single number to call in any emergency (ERSS).100Police101Fire108Ambulance (emergency / EMS)1091Women’s helpline (distress)1098Child helpline1363Tourist helpline (India, 24×7, multilingual)
Emergency numbers are verified against official government and state tourism sources. 112 works anywhere in India.
Nearby
What’s near Pykara Lake
On the map
Where Pykara Lake is
Good to know
Pykara Lake — frequently asked
When is the best time to visit Pykara Lake?
October to March is the cooler, drier season in the Cauvery delta.
What are the entry fee and timings at Pykara Lake?
Entry: Rs 20 entry, boating extra (indicative — confirm on site). Timings: 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM daily. The rupee figure quoted is the Indian adult rate.
How do I reach Pykara Lake?
Base yourself in Ooty or nearby in The Nilgiris, then confirm the last-mile route locally before travel. If access depends on temple, museum or seasonal rules, check on the day before you go.
How much time do I need for Pykara Lake?
About an hour.
What else is near Pykara Lake?
Nearby you can pair Pykara Falls (2.0 km), Glenmorgan (4.8 km), Kamaraj Sagar Dam (6.0 km), Naduvattam (6.4 km).
Read before you go
Pykara Lake guides, stories & itineraries
Stories & history of Pykara Lake
Written about Pykara Lake itself — its history, its legends and the arguments about them.
Around Ooty
Pykara Lake sits in Ooty, so these cover the streets, buildings and surroundings around it.
Story
The Blue Mountains by Steam: The Nilgiri Mountain Railway
6 min read · Read →
Story
Ooty, the Queen of Hill Stations: A Cool Green Corner of the Nilgiris
6 min read · Read →
Tamil Nadu-wide guides & itineraries
Route-level itineraries and practical guides for the rest of Tamil Nadu.
Photographs: Shanmugamp7 (CC BY-SA 4.0), Timothy A. Gonsalves (CC BY-SA 4.0), Saniya kousar (CC BY-SA 4.0). Wikimedia Commons.
Image credits
- Pykara Lake:Shanmugamp7 · CC BY-SA 4.0