Day 3 of the tour ended at the YMCA in Ooty. I was already feeling quite happy having finished the ride. The YMCA folks organized a bonfire and carols on the first night of our stay there. The atmosphere and Christmas decorations reminded me of christmas during school days. The YMCA folks followed the carols up with an excellent dinner. Though the rooms were not insulated, our hosts had setup four layers of quilts on the bed. It was good for once to go to sleep without the next days ride on my mind.
Due to the routine on the last three days, I woke up quite early on day 4. Vamsi who sharing the room with had already gone around Ooty once in the morning. We had some time to kill. So we set out again without agenda. We made a full circle around the Ooty Race course and visited the railway station. I was quite excited to visit the location of the train scene in Gitanjali. I got some beautiful photographs on the walk and one photograph of the race course is probably one of my best.
After the breakfast, we set on a nature walk organized by one of our fellow riders Prem. Prem was a Ooty local boy and generated quite a buzz on the TFN mailing list with his tidbits about Ooty. A twenty something group had formed for the nature walk. We rented a couple of mini trucks for transportation and set out for the starting point. The weather was amazing, clear blue skies and a comfortable temperature. Great day for photography as I realized later.
We started walking through the woods towards Dodabetta. We spotted some birds indigenous to Nilgiris and a lemur. Prem's excitement and passion for the Nilgiri's was quite obvious from the way he was showing us stuff. It reminded me of my other friend Sharath who is equally passionate about Bangalore. I also got to meet some of the other riders who I see only at the starting point and the finish line.One of them was Jaggi who was talking of hash run's that they organized along the trail we were walking. One more thing added to my general knowledge. By the time we finished the trail, it was later than we planned for. We decided to return to Ooty instead of going to Dodabetta. We hired a couple of Jeeps and landed up at the Ooty main road.
After the usual shopping for chocolates,tea and eucalyptus oil, Prem and I headed to Higginbothams. I was looking for a map of Ooty which I found but not detailed enough. I set out for the St. Stephens church on walk taking in the sights of the non-tourist portions of Ooty. The church was unfortunately closed. So I started back to YMCA using the map I bought. I had been to Ooty a couple times before but this was the first time I was walking freely through the city. Ooty was very much like any Indian town except for being in a beautiful hilly area. I returned to YMCA, cleaned my bicycle and started preparing for the next days ride.
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