Feb 18, 2010 03:09 PM
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Okay the review isn’t exactly about Ooty but about Destiny Farmstay in Avalanche. Alright! I had already written about Destiny and have promoted the place so much on net and out of it that the Destiny folks should consider making me their mascot. Anyways, I could not stop myself from sharing the experiences of my recent visit to the farm. My colleagues wanted to get out of Bangalore for a weekend so they decided on Destiny, since they had heard so much about it (courtesy me), so that’s how I landed there again. We had two nights, so we decided to spend one night out in the wilderness. What happened on that night was something none of us were prepared for.
We left from King’s Cliff (another property of Littlearth) in Ooty at 12pm and reached the Destiny parking in Avalanche around 1 pm. From there the next 2 kms, is a 20 minute drive on a truck in a dirt track. We were greeted by extremely friendly staff and a delicious buffet spread. The food in Destiny is absolutely finger licking good. They serve buffets and the chef offers a real variety in every meal. There were six of us and we had decided to camp out on the first night, so we were provided with one room to dump our luggage and freshen up before we set out for our one night in the wild. The activities in-charge in Destiny gave us our back pack, which consisted of a sleeping bag, a water bottle and a mattress and he, along with three other guys carried our dinner and tents.
Our hike started at around 5 pm from Destiny, now I had seen people camping within the property thus I assumed the hike would not be more than 15 minutes. However, I learnt that when they said night out in the wilderness they really meant it. I realized this when we crossed the protective electric fencing that surround the farm and stepped onto the virgin woods and the first thought in my mind was, how on earth is my friend who is recovering from a fractured ankle and can walk barely for 20 minutes at a stretch on even ground going to undertake a one hour hike through these hills. We obviously could not go back to the farm so the only option was to hike even if that meant we would not reach the camp site before it got pitch dark. Even these scary thoughts could not stop me from getting awestruck by the landscape, every single hill; every single turn offers you a different postcard image. This was until it started getting dark and my friend was struggling with her leg, so the guide advised us to rest for sometime so that he could take the others and put everything in the camp site. The twenty minute wait in the middle of the forest next to the brook might be the longest twenty minutes of my life. The woods might look stunning but at night it is eerie and lets not forget home to wild animals, including leopards.
After the wait the guide came back and the next stretch of the hike was a steep climb on a hill, then it was through a small trail leading us to a small meadow hidden between the trees. Unfortunately it was a no moon night, so the only source of light were a few torches and the bonfire, fortunately it was a no moon night because I cant remember the last time I have seen such a starry sky.
Sitting there with friends around the campfire with no noise of anything close to civilization apart from us, drinking from paper cups, figuring out constellations, cracking up spooky stories, venturing into the woods to collect some more wood, helping the guys build the tents, we didn’t realize how time flew in that meadow in the middle of nowhere. We woke up to the birds chirping the next morning and decided to take a walk to the nearby lake. The lake is massive and so clean the water is very clear and the shore line is just a beautiful green spread of woods. Early morning we could see the mist rising from the lake. My friend could not walk back the next day so we had asked Destiny to send a vehicle. While we were waiting for the vehicle, we decided to explore the place some more, and come on I come from a hill station but even that did not prepare me for this beautiful sight. The lakes with the drop down of massive green hills, the endless forest and so peaceful that you can just sit and stare at your surroundings with your mind completely blank, I mean how often can we do that?
Trust Destiny folks to add more adventure to our already crazy trip. The vehicle they sent to pick my friend was a farm tractor. So we all boarded on the back and the 30 minute ride to Destiny was no less than a roller coaster. The guide would suddenly scream “Watch Out! Branches” and we would duck like some bomb threat. The tractor passed through these woods which was just filled with silver firs, the ones which look completely white in the sun like as if it snowed. By the time we reached the farm, we could not name a body part which was not hurting but everyone had a huge grin pasted on their faces.
That day we just chilled out in the farm, taking walks around the farm, looking at the geese, going for short hikes around the property and playing hide and seek at night. I am not going to dig about the Destiny farm so much because you will find those details well covered in the other reviews about Destiny farmstay and I have also written about it enough in my other review in MS. All I wanted to do with this review was share my experiences about one night in the woods, which probably I could have done through diary post but I wanted more people to know how much this place has to offer. No! I do not have some partnership with Destiny nor do I get paid for bragging about them but this place is truly spectacular. It has something for everybody.
