Three Hill Stations — Ooty, Coorg & Kodaikanal

Coimbatore to Ooty by the Mettupalayam ghat — under three hours, thirty-six numbered hairpins, and a climb of about two thousand metres out of the plains. The afternoon is deliberately empty. Ooty rewards a slow first evening more than a scheduled one, and the lake and the town centre are both walkable from anywhere you are likely to be staying.

Doddabetta at 2,637 m first, while the range is still visible. The 1848 botanical gardens after it. Then down to Coonoor by the rack railway where seats allow, and a working tea estate and factory in the afternoon — the leaf followed from the withering loft through rolling and oxidation to the grading table, which is the part that changes how you buy tea afterwards. Lamb's Rock or Dolphin's Nose to close, both looking down into the Coimbatore plain.

Pykara on the way out, then the westward crossing — Gudalur, Mudumalai, and up the Nagarhole boundary into Kodagu. Six hours or so, much of it under canopy, and the leg where wildlife on the verges is a real prospect rather than a hope. The Madikeri evening is left free, which after this drive is the only reasonable way to plan it.

An estate walk in the cool of the morning through arabica grown under shade, with pepper on the trunks and cardamom in the damp ground — a working landscape that changes with the month, and the drying yard alive if the harvest is in. Abbey Falls afterwards. The afternoon takes the valley road up to Bhagamandala and Talacauvery, where the Kaveri rises, and comes down for sunset at Raja's Seat.

The longest day of the trip and the one that makes the rest of it possible. East out of Kodagu, down onto the plateau, and then south-east across the plains toward the Palani hills — a full day's driving, broken for lunch, with the final climb up to Kodaikanal at around 2,130 m in the late afternoon. It is a genuine transfer day rather than a sightseeing one, and the itinerary treats it as such: nothing is scheduled at either end.

Coaker's Walk first, a paved kilometre along the escarpment edge that on a clear morning shows the plains two thousand metres below and on a misty one shows nothing at all, which is its own experience. Bryant Park after it, then the Pillar Rocks — three granite faces standing over a hundred metres above the shola forest. The afternoon works round the lake, which is small enough to cycle and pretty enough to be worth it, with Bear Shola Falls or Green Valley View depending on the light.

The Palani ghat down through the shola and into the dry country below — about 115 km and three hours to Madurai, which has the nearest airport and a main-line railway station. Silver Cascade is on the descent and takes five minutes. If the departure is late enough, the Meenakshi temple in Madurai is worth the hour before the flight; if not, the drive is comfortable for anything from early afternoon onwards.