'The adrenaline kept us awake for the rest of the long night.' Still waving their makeshift torches, they responded to the elephant's squeals and grunts with screams and, eventually, it backed off – although it continued tearing trees apart for the next hour or so. It got to within three metres of us and we thought, 'This might be it.' It felt as if it could almost reach us if it stretched out its trunk. 'But to our shock and disbelief, it didn't even check its step! Just grunted and kept coming. Picking up flaming branches from the fire, the twins waved them around their heads in an attempt to look bigger and scarier. 'We thought we had dodged a bullet until, to our horror, it came at us again from a different direction,' Amber says. 'This time it was much, much worse and we watched in the moon and firelight as it came closer and closer.' Frozen in fear, the sisters held their breath as the clearly still agitated elephant continued to bash branches back and forth. The elephant got to within 20 metres of them before appearing to have a change of heart – or strategy – and veering off toward a nearby waterhole.
