While in India, Maree Diamond and her sister-in-law Cushla Paton decided to visit Coonoor. Maree grew up in Coonoor, near Dannevirke, which was named after the Indian town.
While in India, Maree Diamond and her sister-in-law Cushla Paton decided to visit Coonoor. Maree grew up in Coonoor, near Dannevirke, which was named after the Indian town.
It’s a bit of an unusual name for a settlement, Coonoor.
The history of the Tararua District community isn’t well-known, but a little bit of research turns up that around the early 1890s there were 100 settlers.
All that Maree Diamond, who grew up there and now lives in Napier, knows is that it was so named by the man who surveyed the land after the town in India where he came from.
Maree Diamond and her sister-in-law Cushla Paton decided to visit Coonoor, India.
So when Maree and her sister-in-law Cushla Paton were on a trip to India earlier this year, they decided to check it out.
The people didn’t know there was another Coonoor and were quite excited, Maree says.
Coonoor, India, is in the Nilgris District up in the hills and has a population of about 60,000.
Maree says the road to the town reminds her a lot of the Remutakas, with 14 hairpin bends.
Grains at the Coonoor market.
Flowers at the Coonoor market.
A tea plantation in Coonoor, India.
She says the area’s main industries are tea and vegetables, along with tourism.
“We visited a tea plantation and went to the daily Coonoor market.”
The bus station.
About 10 years ago, Maree says she saw a documentary on television that showed a toy train that would go from Ooty to Coonoor - this is probably the Nilgiri Mountain Railway which travels between the towns of Mettupalayam and Ooty via Coonoor.
Maree and Cushla signed up for a guided tour, where the tour company would organise for a driver to pick them up and take them around.
But she doesn’t think much of the driving.
“The traffic in India is just abysmal. There’s no lanes. There’s potholes and they just drive willy-nilly,” she says.
