Things to do in Kodaikanal.

Kodaikanal Lake

The lake was built in the 1860s by the early British settlers who founded the hill station, dammed across a stream and shaped into the star outline it still holds today. A paved path runs the full circuit, a little over five kilometres, and it is the one walk in Kodaikanal that everyone does, residents included. Rowboats and pedal boats are available at the boat club on the northern shore.

The Tredis sits on the lake's eastern edge, so the same water is a few minutes' walk from every room. Guests who would rather not queue for a boat can arrange one directly through the property. See Boating on Kodaikanal Lake at Dawn.

Coaker's Walk

A paved footpath a little under a kilometre long, cut into the steep southern edge of the plateau by Lieutenant Coaker in 1872. On a clear morning the path looks straight down over the plains toward Periyakulam and, further off, Madurai, with Dolphin's Nose visible to the south. On a misty one, which is common, the town disappears below the path entirely and the walk becomes something closer to standing in cloud.

Early morning is the reliable window for a clear view. By late morning the mist has usually risen off the plains and settled over the ridge instead.

Guna Caves

A set of narrow gaps and passages formed between enormous granite boulders, on the road out toward Pillar Rocks. Older maps and older residents call it Devil's Kitchen; the newer name comes from a Tamil film shot here in the early 1990s, and it is the name most drivers and guides use now. The caves themselves are shallow and the passages close early in the afternoon, since the rock gets slippery once the mist comes in.

The Kurinji Andavar Temple

A small temple to Lord Murugan on a hillside above the town, named for the Kurinji, the shrub that covers these hills in blue-violet flower once every twelve years and stays green and unremarkable for every year in between. The temple's own walls carry a mural telling the story of the flower rather than the more usual deity scenes. It is a working temple, not a monument, and the view from the courtyard over the surrounding shola is worth the short climb on its own.

The same shola runs down to the lake and continues onto the property's own grounds. A longer account of what grows and lives in it, seen from the eastern terrace rather than the temple hill, is in the Journal.

The Lutheran Church

A modest stone church a short walk from the lake, dating to the same colonial period as most of the hill station's older buildings, and still an active congregation rather than a preserved-for-visitors relic. Kodaikanal's mix of churches, mission schools and clubs from that era is one of the quieter parts of the town's history, easy to miss if the only stops are the lake and the viewpoints.