Red Hill Attractions

The Red Hill area 28 km from Ooty is in an ecologically fragile zone of the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve where no more development can happen.

The narrow Muthorai Road leads out of Ooty to the villages of Palada, Ithalar and Emerald, all surrounded by acres of cabbage and carrot, and further to an area called Red Hill. Take this road out of the clamour of Ooty to put the magic back into jaded Nilgiri holidays. For here you’ll be transported back to the time of the British, with the landscape giving you enough evidence as to why the mandarins of Team Britannica so loved the Blue Mountains.

It is here in Red Hill that the forests are magnificent and vast, the foliage is dense and the air crisp and pure. Lush eye-soothing greenery covers whole areas right into the horizon. A great change from the clamour of Ooty, the wildness of Mudumalai an dlaidback Coonoor. Best of all, Red Hill offers a permanent guarantee of natural beauty, since no further development is possible under the low in the ecologically fragile area of the sensitive Upper Bhavani Sancuary nearby.

Rined by an almost neverending array of mountains clothed in green finery, Red Hill, so named by the British in remembrance of a similar area in England, is where tranquiliy meets calm to produce a scence that is smoothing and soul enriching.

Eight lakes from the finest beauty spots on he face of Red Hill. You can take a tour of these all within a 25 km raduys if Red Hills. A gentle walk along their shores, with a myriad birdsongs, as accompaniment is a great afternoon spent. You can also fish for carp and troute in the lakes while you relax and take in the scenery.

But the best thing to do in Red Hill is to take a long, unhurried amble through the wilderness along the pencil-hin pathways that go all around the valleys.

Lake District

The area is dottd by eight lakes, aquamarine in colour and disilled in purity emerals, Avalanche, Upper Lake 12 km, Porthimund 15 km and Western Catchments 1,2 and 3 40 km. From atop the lofty perches around Red Hill, they appear as impossibly odd-shaped mirrors feflecting the clouds. The occasional glint of the sun is magnified on their surface, as the waters break into fine ripples.

The area receives heavy rainfall every year 100 inches just between june and August that fills up the lakes.

Avalanche

About 13 km from Emerald 7 km from Red Hill by the metalled road to Ooty is the village of Avalanche where one of the oldest tribes of the Nilgiris, the Todas lives. Basically catle-rearers, they would barter ghee and butter for grains in the olden days. And while visiting them, if you happen to see an elderly man placing his foot ritualistically on the head of a woman, don’t be appalled. That is how Toda elders bless their young. Avalanche also has a trout hatchery that is over 100 years old.

Electrified

The open grasslands and jade forests of Parson’s Valley Lake take the metalled road to the Parson’s Valley power house have an allure all their own. Cut off from the clamour of daily existence, you are bound to experience a rare freshness of spirit there. Then there are the hydroelectric power stations at Emerald and Avalanche built in the 1950s to visit.

Plain Tribes

If your heart tells you it’s time to find a soulmate, check your wallet. Even if you find just 200 rupees in it, if you are a Badaga, hen you’re on. For that is how much money you need to pay your bride’s family at the time of bringing her home. No matter how rich you are how exalted your status, and how vast your property holdings, all you need are two currency notes with Mahatma Gandhi’s monochrome photograph on them. And if the all-important compatibility does not come about in your marriage.  And as the bride, don’t forget to place the 200 rupees in the man’s hands before you retun to your parents place.