The Smoke That Thunders
Victoria Falls Before meeting Hollie and Lou in Kasane, Janet and Paddy did some Victoria Falls sightseeing The Big Tree Livingstone's Tree. It measures 22.40 metres in girth (2004) and is 24 metres tall (1985), unusually large for a baobab. The explorer and missionary David Livingstone , who discovered Victoria Falls and named it for his queen, in 1885 carved his name into a boabab tree on an island (Garden Island) above the precipice of the waterfall. Big Tree is roughly 2 km from the river, the falls, and the island where Livingstone arrived in a makoro dugout canoe, made landfall, and wrote his records. Apart from being the best known, this tree is possibly the oldest and biggest baobab in Zambia. Some similar trees were lost by the flooding further downstream that occurred when Kariba Dam was finished in 1956. Unlike the animals rescued and saved by Operation Noah during the flooding, the trees had to stay where they were, many were bulldozed so they would not becom...