Big Tree at Victoria Falls

Auf dem Rückweg hatten wir noch einen kurzen Stop beim „Big Tree“ eingelegt. Großer Baum!

„The Big Tree is a large baobab of the species Adansonia digitata situated close to Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe. It is unusually large for a baobab, measuring 22.40 meters in girth and 24 meters tall.

The explorer and missionary David Livingstone became the first European to observe Victoria Falls in 1854 and he was named the falls after his Queen Victoria. While the Big Tree is sometimes referred to as Livingstone's Tree, Livingstone carved his name into a smaller baobab tree on an island (Garden Island) above the precipice of the waterfall.
The Big Tree is located roughly 2 km from the Zambezi River, Victoria Falls, and the island where Livingstone arrived in a makoro dugout canoe, made landfall, and wrote his records. This tree is possibly the oldest and biggest baobab in the world. 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 could not be relocated, and many were bulldozed so they would not become underwater hazards.

It is estimated that The Big Tree may be about 2,000 years old based on girth and growth ring data collected from other trees. However, it is deeply incised and there is speculation that it may be three tree trunks (or trees) and it may be considerably younger.“Read more