Direct hit!
Tomaree cops a direct hit from a crawler lightning bolt that exploded over Shoal Bay
Chasing the Uncatchable
For more than two years I’ve been returning to the same spot, tripod planted, camera pointed stubbornly toward Tomaree Mountain. Night after night, storm after storm, I’ve tried to capture lightning striking exactly where I want it in the frame. And night after night, I’ve gone home empty-handed.
The composition has never changed. Tomaree is the anchor — solid, familiar, immovable. The problem is convincing something as chaotic as lightning to cooperate. Getting a bolt to hit Tomaree feels like an exercise in patience, futility, and mild self-inflicted madness. Add heavy rain into the mix — soaked clothes, a wet lens, blurred frames — and the odds have never been in my favour.
Still, I kept coming back.
On 01 February 2026, a storm began rolling in from the west. At first glance it didn’t look particularly promising. There wasn’t much rain, which was a good sign, but there also wasn’t much lightning. It felt like it might be yet another long night of waiting, listening, hoping — and packing up with nothing to show for it.
Chasing lightning is a lot like watching a scary movie. You know the jump scare is coming. You’re completely aware that this exact moment is the reason you’re there. And yet, when it finally happens, it still makes you jump out of your skin.
This storm was creeping in from behind me, which meant I couldn’t see what was coming. I could hear it though — deep, rolling thunder, plenty of energy moving in my direction. The plan was simple: let it pass over the top of me and hope something happened in front of the lens.
Then it did.
A massive crawler bolt ripped across the sky and exploded just in front of me. The light was blinding — the kind that momentarily erases everything else. Instinctively, I flinched. For a split second I didn’t even know if the camera had caught anything at all.
When I checked the screen, there it was.
The bolt had burst across the sky and streaked downward toward the peak of Tomaree, striking what looks to be the metal viewing platform on the eastern side of the mountain. After years of trying, years of wet lenses and missed opportunities, I finally had the shot I’d been chasing.
The best part? I didn’t even get that wet capturing it.
Sometimes persistence doesn’t pay off quietly. Sometimes it arrives all at once, in a flash of white light and rolling thunder — and reminds you exactly why you keep coming back.