On January 8, 1819, sitting in Dimbatty valley, the Collector of Coimbatore, John Sullivan, wrote to Sir Thomas Munro, who was Governor of Madras: “My dear Colonel, I have been in the Highlands for the last week. This is the finest country… it resembles I suppose Switzerland more than any other part of Europe… it freezes here every night, this morning we found ice in our water chatties (clay pots).”
It has been two centuries since this expedition of colonial explorers, led by John Sullivan, made its journey up the Nilgiri hills. As the Nilgiris celebrates the bicentenary of this exploration, heritage enthusiasts, ecologists and locals are uniting to celebrate the legacy of the ‘blue mountains’.
