Hidden gems and offbeat places in Ooty and Coonoor

• The Nilgiri Library, a red-and-white Victorian Gothic building on Commissioner's Road near Charring Cross. It has lent books since 1858–59 and has been in this building since 1867. Around 30,000 volumes include rare 19th-century works on the Nilgiris and its tribal communities, kept in a read-only heritage section. It is a subscription library, not a sight: visitors can use the reading room on temporary membership, about ₹500 a month.
• Higginbothams on Commercial Road, the hill branch of the Chennai bookseller whose 1844 shop is India's oldest still trading, strong on Nilgiris titles.
• Kandal Cross Shrine, a Catholic hill shrine west of town founded in 1933, known as the Calvary of Tamil Nadu. Its crucifix holds a relic of the True Cross brought from Rome in 1939. Entry is free; Fridays and the annual feast in early May are crowded.
• Fernhills Palace, the Mysore royal family's summer palace south of the lake, now a heritage hotel. Non-guests are let in at the management's discretion, so book a meal or tea to see the teak interiors.
• The Tribal Research Centre Museum at M. Palada, about 9 km from Ooty: a government anthropology museum from 1983 on the Toda, Kota, Kurumba, Irula and other communities, with life-size dwellings in the grounds. It is open every day, 10:00–17:00, with a lunch break from 13:00 to 14:00.
• Toda munds, the hamlets of barrel-vaulted houses near the Botanical Garden and along the Pykara road. There is no ticket: wait at the edge to be invited in, ask before photographing people or the dairy temple, and stay away from ceremonies unless invited.

• Lovedale station, 7 km south of Ooty: a single small platform from 1907 on the UNESCO-listed line, with a blue heritage building and a trilingual signboard in eucalyptus forest. To stop here, take one of the shorter Coonoor–Ooty trains.
• The Madras Regimental Centre Museum in Wellington cantonment, between Coonoor and Ooty: battle honours, uniforms, medals and photographs of the Madras Regiment, the oldest infantry regiment of the Indian Army, raised in 1758. It is inside a working defence area, so carry photo ID, dress modestly, expect no photography inside, and note that access rules can change. Entry is about ₹50.
• Highfield Tea Estate, 2 km north-east of upper Coonoor, one of the few working factories that lets walk-in visitors through: withering, rolling, firing, then a tasting. Entry about ₹10–30; the factory floor usually stands idle on Mondays.
• Green Shop in Bedford, Coonoor (also in Ooty and Kotagiri), the fair-trade outlet of the Keystone Foundation, which has worked with Nilgiri indigenous communities since 1993: wild honey from Kurumba and Irula honey gatherers, millets, beeswax and Toda embroidery, which holds a Geographical Indication.
• Lamb's Rock, on the road to Dolphin's Nose: a forest walk from the parking to a cliff edge over the Coonoor valley, with the plains far below on a clear day. Entry is about ₹10, and the air is clearest in the morning. More in viewpoints.
• Droog Fort, from a trailhead in Nonsuch tea estate about 13 km from Coonoor: what is left of an 18th-century outpost of Tipu Sultan, reached by a walk of three or four kilometres through tea, about an hour each way. At the end is a crag above the Mettupalayam plains; locals call the hill Bakasura Malai, after the demon Bheema is said to have killed there. Free; start early and carry water, as there is nothing past the trailhead.

• The John Sullivan Memorial at Kannerimukku, 2 km from Kotagiri and about 30 km from Ooty. Sullivan (1788–1855), the Madras civil servant who founded Ooty, lived in this restored house, Pethakal Bungalow; it is now a small museum of Nilgiris history with early photographs and documents, and the home of the Nilgiris Documentation Centre. Small entry fee.
• Longwood Shola, on the edge of Kotagiri, the last substantial old-growth shola forest beside the town. Entry is only on a two-hour walk with a Forest Department guide, booked online, from about ₹699 plus tax.
• The Porivarai rock paintings above Karikaiyur, east of Kotagiri: a shelter with around 500 Mesolithic paintings, on cliffs still worked by Irula honey gatherers. A three-hour guided walk, from about ₹1,099 plus tax, booked through the same Forest Department portal.
• Ralliah Dam at Jagathala, south of Ooty: a small reservoir among tea and eucalyptus, reached by a narrow road that no tours use. See lakes.
• Avalanche and Emerald, about 28 km from Ooty: reservoirs in shola and grassland where private cars stop at the forest checkpoint and the Forest Department runs its own safari. See nature trips.

Lovedale fits a toy-train ride, Lamb's Rock and Droog Fort a day in Coonoor, the Sullivan Memorial and Longwood a day in Kotagiri. More in day trips.