Where might an elephant go when she runs away from a circus near Bendigo?
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That question is being revisited as the 25th anniversary of Ginny the elephant's flight from a Dunolly football oval arrives.
The 36-year-old circus elephant's disappearance sparked one of the strangest full-scale searches in central Victoria's history, which stretched over August 5 and 6, back in 1998.
Ginny had legged it from a footy oval the circus was using after being spooked by a train as darkness fell.
![Journalists investigate a trail of elephant droppings in Dunolly. Pictures Bendigo Advertiser Journalists investigate a trail of elephant droppings in Dunolly. Pictures Bendigo Advertiser](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/Tom.OCallaghan/b12ed1d8-e94d-4e62-bfb8-64025a9eb809.JPG/r93_0_6000_3973_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
She left nothing but a trail of large footprints, which petered out at the railway line.
"Questions were as bizarre as the idea of an elephant at large in Australian bushland," the Bendigo Advertiser reported, not least because residents kept finding broken fence palings and large droppings.
"Does the space between the droppings suggest the elephant was running in fright? Were the droppings steaming when you found them? Was it an Indian or an African elephant?"
No-one could be sure as the night gave way to a new day.
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Former journalist Linda Barrow was in the Advertiser newsroom during the search and remembers everyone thinking the first tip-off about the story was a hoax.
"Someone had initially rung in and said 'there's an elephant running up the street', so we rang through to someone in Dunolly, maybe a hotel owner from memory, who confirmed it," she said.
"After that we were getting constant calls coming in from people in Dunolly, giving us blow-by-blow updates."
Long history of bizarre animal escapes
Ginny is not the only exotic fugitive to have risen to notoriety in central Victoria over the years.
A camel legged it through Bendigo in 2013, in one of many examples of strange escapes.
It was on the run for 20 minutes before it was caught and made national headlines.
Even animals that do not actually escape can cause a stir.
It is now 160 years since a bizarre story about a koala getting its own back on a callous council worker made the news.
Bendigo's council had just obtained the marsupial for a menagerie in its botanic garden and the worker had been tasked with leading it through the streets to its new home.
"The man not being an adept at bear leading, and thinking, in his ignorance of Australian natural history, that the small and sleepy looking bear would prefer to be borne on his shoulders instead of being driven or dragged, adopted the sheep-like method of catching its fore feet and hind feet together in either hand, and throwing it over his back," the Advertiser reported on 29 June, 1863.
The treatment of animals left a lot to be desired in this period.
![A Bendigo Advertiser story from 1863 demonstrates how not to handle an Australian native animal. Image courtesy of Trove A Bendigo Advertiser story from 1863 demonstrates how not to handle an Australian native animal. Image courtesy of Trove](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/Tom.OCallaghan/be6a5c9f-6599-48c9-806e-ee02b9fa1e1e.JPG/r0_0_890_569_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
"No sooner, however, did master bear find himself subjected to such an undignified mode of transport, than he immediately resented it, first by a grunt, and then by closing his teeth in the shoulders of his bearer," the Advertiser continued.
"The man, with a yell that might have been heard half a mile off, tried to shake off the grisly embrace, but it was not before he had rolled himself on the ground, that he at last succeeded in shaking the native loose."
The koala was apparently fine but the council worker thought it best to rethink his handling method. He tied a rope to it and nudged it through the street with a stick.
"The last that was seen of the man was driving the bear before him down Mundy-street with greater difficulty than driving ... [a] pig through a fair," the Advertiser reported.
Ginny crashes back into civilisation
Fast-forward to 1998 and Dunolly police were finding it surprisingly difficult to find Ginny, the half-tonne elephant roaming the area.
Her natural camouflage blended seamlessly into bushland, Dunolly senior sergeant Peter Bigmore said as the search continued.
"You could actually be looking straight at her and not see her," he said.
People tried all kinds of tricks to draw Ginny out.
Resident Dorothy Smith claimed she heard Ginny after calling the elephant's name from her verandah at about 7am.
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"Blow me down, I got a trumpet call," she said.
Yet Ginny proved an elusive quarry. She kept moving on.
![The front page of the Bendigo Advertiser on Thursday, August 7, 1998, the day after Ginny was located. Image courtesy of the Bendigo Library The front page of the Bendigo Advertiser on Thursday, August 7, 1998, the day after Ginny was located. Image courtesy of the Bendigo Library](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/Tom.OCallaghan/719cff8e-672a-4dcc-a133-19be2837e9b2.JPG/r0_0_571_583_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
Then, at 2pm, the elephant crashed out of the scrub with an ABC News helicopter hot on her heels.
"She appeared almost precisely where she had disappeared 20 hours earlier and was guided through the streets to the circus camp a little tired and hungry but otherwise none the worse for wear," the Advertiser reported.
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