Animal Diaries Archive

Strike Two

26 October 2007

G'day to all our regular readers and a huge welcome to all the new ones. Our latest article will leave you saying "NO WAY ARE YOU KIDDING ME". Some of our regular readers may remember a story I did called STRIKE OF APROVAL based on a huge tree that was struck by lighting in the elephant enclosure just under a year ago. Well it's HAPPENED AGAIN, "No I'm NOT KIDDING". Another tree less than 20 meters away from the last one was hit, not only that but we had only just walked the elephants past it as we were making our way up to the morning feed. I had just happened to look back when I saw a lighting bolt, and then almost instantaneously there was another bright pink flash and a thunderous boom. I saw bits of the old eucalypt tree exploding through the air it truly was an amazing sight.

The elephants where surprisingly calm considering what just happened and how close we were. The bark was blown off the tree and a large split ran down the trunk a hole at the base off the tree was also found. We later found another hole in the concrete just inside the elephants gate were the lighting ran along the root system of the tree and tried to resurface. The shear power of Mother Nature left us all amazed and we couldn't seem to wipe the grins off our faces WOW!!

I tell you what Three Strikes and we might have to get out. Unfortunately due to public danger the tree had to be chopped back to a stump.
You can check out the first lightning strike story in the December 2006 archive and see the amazing photos of what happened to this enormous eucalypt tree.

Take it easy and we look forward to seeing you all very soon.

Regards
Elephant Team.