We woke in the morning to the most amazing view, our hotel was perched on the side of a hill, surrounded by tea bushes, waterfalls and a river below. The sun was coming up over the mountains in front of is, at about 6.30am, birds were swirling about and the morning mist was rising, it was simply stunning! Sadly we didn’t have time to indulge in the infinity pool or the spa, we had a busy day ahead!
MUNNAR as we know it was established around 1880 by British John Daniel Munroe, who was sent there to settle border disputes but fell in love with the lush forests and gentle hardworking inhabitants.
Munroe and two other Brits established the tea and coffee plantations, taking care to leave the land structure complete, working around the forests and its flora and fauna. Moonu’ means ‘three’ and ‘Aru’ means ‘river’ as the town was established where three rivers meet. The area is at a height of around 1,500 m to 2,695m above sea level and was once the summer capital of the British in South India. The soil is so rich and the weather so perfect that every scrap of land has tea bushes planted on it, along with eucalyptus trees, cardamom and lemon grass.
First stop, Eravikulam National Park inside a tea plantation with the most fabulous views. We took a golf cart (it was too hot to walk) up the 3kms to the top to see wild deer (too fast for pictures), Nigrili Tahr (endangered mountain Goats only found in this Park) and a plant that only flowers once every 12 years, the blue Neelakurinji flower. We also saw Fresh Elephant dung!!! Sadly no sight of the beasts themselves.
The views at the top, which was at over 6000 feet above sea level, were spectacular! It was calmly serene, beautiful and so colourful.
Graham trialled picking tea leaves – he was unsuccessful at being offered a fulltime job!
The views got greener and the atmosphere became quieter the further we went up.
Finally we came across the endangered and rare Negrili Tahr Goats…..
Finally, a photo stop at the top of the tourist trail…..
On the way down, we got very excited when we saw some fresh elephant poo, sadly that’s as close as we got!
We then visited a Tea Museum, we saw how the picked leaves are crushed several times through spiked rollers, it’s at this point it smells like tea. The bushes and leaves have no smell at all. The crushed leaves are then dried and sifted before being mechanically sorted and packaged as leaf tea or tea dust.
Old artefacts were on display and we watched a fascinating film on the history of the establishment of the farms.
After lunch we took a drive out to a lake and stopped at Echo Point, Graham duly verified why it was called that! Sounds echoed around the mountains, which again were beautifully green.
Looks great you are having a good time.
Lynnette