...but the work is doing the lightening. So far so good – but yes, we learnt it. We were: Markus, Tino, Theres and Johannes. We met the two guys in Albania in a roundabout, having had the same thinking and we stopped on the parking space of the supermarket next to it. They just came from Georgia and this was our goal for next december. We got news and were chatting for 2 hours. Then we decided to spend the evening together, so we went shopping and searched on the map for a nice spot for the night. A small and badly asphalted road guided us to the spot for the upcoming night. We parked our vehicles one behind the other and as we started cooking, the two guys prepared the Landcruiser for the night. When the two knocked on our door and said, there was a thunderstorm coming up, we let them in and made us comfortable in the truck – and as it happens... shortly after they came in, it started raining intensive and we heard thunder and saw many lightenings. We ate and drank, turned off the light to observe the lightenings and kept on drinking.
With 200 db and an uncountable time a lightening hit something very close to us. We were just laughing and saying things like:”I have never been that close to a lightening” - “Let's see, if the Toyota is not burning – hahaha” - “I do have a fire-extinguisher” and we had another beer and rakija. Then Tino had to go out and suddenly we heard him shouting “Markus, I think the lightening hit our car” and he added “He burnt the battery of the car”.
Markus and I went out to Tino, who already had opened the bonnet and looked what had happened. The terminal of the battery was melted away and in the air we smelt burnt electric cables. Luckily, the Landcruiser had an equal spare battery, so we started repairing in the dark. After changing the batteries, the poles got connected, but we only heard the sound of buzzing and a bang. It was the winch at the back of the car, whose motor was still working, but the hook of the winch was off. We decided to do the rest of the work next morning in the daylight and had another beer before going to bed.
The next morning, after a short night due to not knowing if the car was still running or not, we had a short breakfast and then started working.
The winch at the back, from where the lightening must have stroke out of the ground (our big wheels and the distance to the ground made the lightening choose the Landcruiser and not our truck), got disconnected. The 5 mm thick steel panel on which the winch was mounted, had been totally deformed and the cables were unusable.
After disconnecting the winch we had another try to connect the spare battery, everything went well, key in, the car turned on, the lights were on and they were all happy.
After the tidying up, we had our second breakfast and said good bye to each other.
Guys, it has been a nice evening with you, thanks again for all the information. We wish you a nice travel back home. (And an advice, you should start playing Lotto!!)