I CLIMBED THE WORLD'S LARGEST ELEPHANT!

Before the tour began, we had a chance to walk around Lucy and take some pictures of her and her howdah. Much has changed over the years and now Lucy has the same howdah she had when she was first built in 1881 and billed as the World's Largest Elephant. There were other, bigger elephants built but they either were destroyed by fire or hurricanes. Lucy is the only one that has survived. You can check out her history by going to www.lucytheelephant.com. We are standing in Lucy's "head" in this little room. That is my grandson J, in the red shorts and in the background is my daughter holding K up to see out the elephants "eye." All very cool stuff! A view of the stairs we climbed to get to the inside.

We are now inside the "belly" of the elephant which is now a museum with circular stairs on each side to climb up into the "howdah." We also watched an 8 minute video of how and when Lucy was built and then rescued when she was left to deteriorate many years later. A cute side note, our guide told us that several veterinarians have been married here also!

Here is the Margate water tower with the picture of Lucy on it...viewed from the howdah (a seat, usually with a canopy, for riding on the back of an elephant.)
Here is the view of the Margate beach from the howdah on Lucy's back...we climbed through her rear leg all the way to the top onto her back and into the howdah, and the floor of the howdah is a glass skylight for the rooms below!
What a fun time we had, the weather was clear and beautiful...not too hot, not too humid...a perfect beach day and that's where we went in the afternoon!