Exploring the Beauties of Nilgiri Hills

By the 2nd October 2008, to escape from the beating heat of the sun as well as to explore the beauties of the nature of the hills, we, the BD-IV students, moved from Chennai by train towards Nilgiri Hills. The train took us to Coimbatore a commercial city, from there the bus driver took us safely to Coonoor, our first destination and stayed in a silent and peaceful bangalow, a recreation centre of the Salvation Army which proved to be constructed by the British for summer holiday to escape from the terrible summer heat of India’s cities. The centre manager and the workers attended us generously by providing our requirements sufficiently
In the early morning of the following day, we are preparing to climb up to the top of the Nilgiri hills, a beautiful Blue Mountain. The bus took us to the view point on the top hill of Nilgiri, the Dodabetah. The view from the Dodabetah Telescope was incredible and great! We could see the entire down and surrounding of the Blue Mountain.

Looking down from there we see Kerala on the west, the Mysore State on the north, and Coimbatoredistrict on the east and south bound it. The view from the hilltop was amazing and we took a couple of shots to make the trip a real success and for souvenir.

Our next step was sightseeing around Ooty, the Queen of the Hill station. This green and pictorial hill station of south India is placed at an elevation of 2240 metres from the sea level.

The rich flora of various species like conifers, pine and eucalyptus make the region more attractive along with funnel-shaped lavender, botanical garden, rose garden, lake view, etc.

We refreshed our mind, body and soul first in the wonderful splendored historic botanical garden by lying down on the grass of mildly slope; watching and looking around the beauties of nature, well maintained different varieties of flowers and plants, old aged trees with many newly planted sprouts. It is really great to see many artistic cut and designed flowers, plants and trees, which had added the beauties and value of the handicrafts of the Creator. Before leaving to the Rose Park we took considerable shots again here.

After the bus took few minutes, we were in a beautiful park that was full blossom with different kinds of roses. As we entered the park, the sweet fragrance of bloomy roses blows us gently to realize the secret value of nature that God had imparted out of the sight. And while we were wandering about the park, I realized one of the oldies songs: ‘Rose par rimtui min thliah la; Hmangaihna rose par rimtui…’
‘Render me a bloomy fragrant of Rose; the true bloomy fragrant rose of Love…’

On the next day, we set out to explore another beauty of the mountain in Coonoor vicinity. From the Lamb’s rock view we look a lonely Sleeping Lady mountain that was lying far away distant; if we look down the lower side, the entire valley was covered by the morning mist and fog like plentiful white blossom cotton wool heap up in the foot of the mountain. Then run on towards Dolphine Nose View to see amazing mountain edge and a high Catherine’s Waterfalls.

And on the way of to and fro we passed through many beautiful vast tea garden, stopped over there for sometimes to observe how much the successful people had paid the price in order to reach the stage of the winner. We had good time to gaze around the uphill of
the Lamb’s Rock, the shooting stage of many south Indian films; some film stars were doing shooting even during our visit.

By standing on the edge of the rocky Lamb’s rock, I praise God by humming this song:
O Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder,
Consider all the worlds thy hands have made;
I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder,
Thy power throughout the universe displayed.
When through the woods and forest glades I wander’
And hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees;
When I look down from lofty mountain grandeur,
And hear the brook and feel the gently breeze.

Then after we had spent three days and nights in Nilgiri hills, we closed our joyous tour program with devotional service in the Salvation Army Recreation conference hall and safely returned home to Gurukul.

We praise and thank God for His blessings granted upon us and well pleased to the manager of the Salvation Army Recreation centre for giving us special concession on accommodations as well as to the college authorities who granted us permission for the tour.

Closing Devotional Worship at Coonoor S.A Centre