15th day (The Big Cheat)

If these shvil blogs are ever to get turned into a book, then there are some names for the book that spring to mind. Something like " Shvil Yisrael for the 50 Year Old - Are we over the hill, (yet)?" Or since we change the walking direction depending on the uphill or downhill grade of the day's walk, perhaps "The Downhill Walkers Guide to Shvil Yisrael" is appropriate? There would have to be an appendix, or an altogether second volume that would be named "Cheating the Shvil" "Shvil Yisrael Through a Car Window" or "The Drivers Guide to Shvill Yisrael" . The possibilities are endless. No series would be complete without the obligatory restaurant guide "The Shvil on a Full Stomach", "The Eating Guide to Shvil Yisrael" or simply "Abu Shvil". If anybody out there in cyberworld has any additional book ideas or name suggestions, then just send them in, via the comment part of the site, e-mail or facebook. Any way you want to look at it, today's leg would get pretty good coverage in all the books and for good reason.
We'd agreed to start early in order to exploit the day as much as possible and not be pressured about getting back to the real world of family and shabbat dinners too late. I picked Garry up in Carmiel at 6.15 so we could get to Allonim junction by 7.00. We were the first ones there and headed straight for the Arcaffe. Tracey rolled in a few minutes later and Yoni a minute after that. There's something very civilised, very right, about starting our day's walk with a really good double machiatto. We miss our Kedarim Segafreddo.
From there it was on to the end point to drop a car off outside of Tivon, then on to the centre point at kibbutz Yagur where we would drop off a second car and up Mount Carmel to the Druze village of Ussfiya to start the days proceedings. Centre point? Drop off in the middle? Have I made a mistake describing today's route? No,no, no. No mistake. As previously mentioned ad nausium, we don't like walking on road. Even if the road is part of a kibbutz or the same road leads through a slightly run down agricultural hassidic settlement. So by un-unanimous democratic decision we arranged to come down Mt. Carmel and pick up a left  car in the carpark of kibbutz Yagur . We would then drive through to the edge of Kfar Hassidim, where we would continue to walk to the end. This is no skimming off a few clicks of pointless road walking at the beginning or end. This is full-on wanton cheating. No other way to call it. But hey, I'm a democrat and once again, 3-1 is a clear decision. So today's route would be divided into 3 distinct sections. The first walking down Mt. Carmel via Nachal HaMa'apilim. The second driving from Yagur to Kfar Hassidim. The third walking through very different topography from the mountain descent, between Kfar Hassidim to Tivon.
If you check your atlas, or know the places that I've named, you'll notice that we've changed the direction for this walk. Absolute, unquestionable unanimous decision here. Down Mt. Carmel is much more enjoyable than up Mt. Carmel.
So there we were, looking for the starting point for today's jaunt in the middle of Ussfiya. Eventually we spotted the tell-tale white orange and blue markings along the main road of the village and found a place to park in some restaurant's carpark. We crossed the road and started off through the suburbs of the village.  No sooner had we started walking when the complaining started with it.

Tracey and Yoni competed who could whine louder as to why we hadn't  driven through this part rather than walk, God forbid, along this pleasant little side road. I rolled my eyes and tried to suffer them silently. Eventually the markings pointed us down a dirt track, still wide enough to take a car down if we'd really wanted to, but the cacophony of complaints was eventually replaced by the far more pleasant chirping of the birds. As we got deeper into the pine forest the road narrowed and we were all happy.
One of the first subjects of conversation was the continuation from the previous walk concerning the pisstool, our female outdoor urinary aid. Cousin Linda, who worked for many years in the outdoor equipment business , politely pointed out to me that it already exists. Bummer. Doesn't have as great a product name as pisstool, though.  But not to worry. Tracey and Yoni both got whacked in the face by a branch that flicked back, prompting us to try to invent a branch sensor that might be part of a hat that would warn the wearer that he/she was going to get imminently flicked by the branch in front. We don't have a name yet or a clear product design but we'll work on it next time. Or the time after that. We've still got a good few legs ahead of us before we hit Eilat. In the mean time if anyone has any ideas, bring 'em on.

The forest quite quickly changed from planted pine to natural oak and grew progressively darker. The old natural forest was overgrown and allowed in only mottled light. To think that this gem is only 10 minutes from Haifa, Israel's 3rd largest city. After an hour or so of quiet solitary walking the peace was broken by the unmistakeable sounds of school children. Not too raucous, as many Israeli school groups can be, but still, relative to the birds, an unwanted intrusion. Yoni and Garry laugh at how I occasionally bump into people on the trail that I know. And it happened again. Amongst this group from an Anthroposophic boarding school that takes in kids from troubled backgrounds were 2 young kids, Nikko and Sergei, who come on weekends to my neighbours since their own families can't take them. I don't know who was more surprised, them or me, but it was one of those numerous shvil moments when the unexpected happens. Not far after we passed them we stopped for our regular cup of herbal tea and chocolate croissant, but couldn't fully relax for fear of being overtaken by the rabble of school kids. They really seemed to be well behaved when we passed them but that doesn't mean that we wanted to share this narrow, shaded mountain path with them. And so passed the first part of our morning, walking down a gradual to moderate slope through thick old-growth forest until we came out quite suddenly into the car park at Yagur. I had been led to believe that the descent down Nachal HaMa'apilim was a steep one, even treacherous at times. No such thing. It was a lovely little stroll that barely caused us to break a sweat. Maybe it's all just relative. The previous walk, down Nachal Amud, was long and had about an hour and a half of hard up and down rock climbing. The three of us each suffered for the few days afterwards from stiff muscles, especially thighs, not wanting to tell each other for fear of being wimps. It wasn't till we met once again for this shvil section that we realised that all three of us suffered the same stiffness. No such risk after descending this mountain though.

 I'm not going to describe the drive to the next drop off point, other than Kfar Hassidim didn't look particularly charming but still might have been interesting to walk through. I wouldn't know.
Upon getting out of Tracey's car we were reminded immediately that this was an agricultural settlement, hassidic or not. The smell of hassidic dairies is no holier than any kibbutz dairy. That mix of stale cow urine with boggy cow shit is a smell that wafts through many kibbutzim, moshavim and here in Kfar Hassidim. We were happy when we finally got out of olfactory range.
We saw a number of strange things along the route today. Truth is, we often encounter something strange or unexpected and that's one of the beauties of the trail. So today we had a telephone handset hanging from an electric high tension wire in Ussfiya. Gives new meaning to the phrase "I was left hanging on the telephone". Then we had an intact toilet bowl in the middle of no-where. Poor Tracey copped a few jokes from her male companions about for once not having to squat or use the pisstool in nature. And then we had 2 shvillers and a dog. Yes, they were walking the entire shvil all in one go, the large horse-dog being laden with a girdle, full of overstuffed pockets . I'm not convinced that the dog-sherpa union would have approved but it didn't seem to be complaining.

The hardest part of today's walk was the steep hill we had to climb not long after we left Kfar Hassidim. Even though it was quite steep,  it was still only a hill. 20 minutes of huffing and puffing and we were at the top. And the views from the top made all the puffing and panting worthwhile. We were basically looking back from above, over the distance that we'd covered, either by foot or motor. The Carmel mountains, Zvulun Valley, Haifa, the smoke stacks of the bay oil refineries, and the sea. Now if I'm a canyon and cave man then Garry is a beach and sea man, so imagine Garry's joy of seeing the sea in the distance for the first time in a year of shvil walking. The Mediterranean has never really done it for me, what, after Bondi, the Great Barrier Reef or Wilson's Prom. Still, Garry is going to be one happy camper for the next year or so.
In the year and a month that we've been on the trail I've avoided self congratulation because, well, there's really been no reason. But now I will allow just a hint of it. When Garry set Haifa as our aim after the first year I thought he was being his usual over optimistic self, perhaps only half believing that we could really walk from Dan to Haifa. But after 13 months and 15 walks which involved quite a lot of manoeuvring and effort in regards to personal schedules, we saw Haifa and the sea from the top of this unnamed hill and we realised that we really, truly have done it. And yes, it felt good. Then the reality check kicked in after a brief discussion of our aims for the second year, then the third and the fourth and fifth through the desert to Eilat. We've still got a long way to go.

  

At the top of the hill we crossed a small field and spotted THE tree. One of the most memorable, impressive trees we've seen so far on the trail. .An enormous, lone oak tree that you just can't walk past without resting under it. So, drawn by it magic, we did just that. It's a hard life, but someone's gotta live it. Eventually we  pried ourselves away from the enchanted tree, carried on and soon passed a Bedouin encampment. A run down hut, an empty animal enclosure, bits of unused corrugated metal sheeting strewn over. Its a sight they we see reasonably often. These little outposts are not marked on any maps and are not inhabited all year round, but we've seen them dotted all over the north of Israel. It's a reassuring sign that the modern 21st century Israel still hasn't invaded every square inch of the country.
The descent was a bit gentler than the ascent which as I've said already, wasn't too hard. I would say,in fact, that gentle is the word that comes to mind when I think of today's route. The descent down Mt.Carmel was not overly troublesome. The countryside that we walked though from Kfar Hassidim comprised of easy, gentle hills. Now we were into the last section, a very slight uphill meadow, full of the obligatory spring wildflowers, different from the previous two walks due to the different geographical areas and changing seasons. Yoni commented that this walk was no less beautiful than Nachal Amud. It certainly isn't as breathtaking as Nachal Amud but I certainly understand his enthusiasm for today's deep forest, the views over Haifa Bay and now these final few kilometres which were pretty much a perfect end to a perfect days walk.
As we were driving back to Kfar Hassidim to pick up Tracey's car, she got a phone call from her daughter that there was water leaking through the roof of her house. It happens that life interrupts our best efforts to escape reality. So while Tracey had to quickly return home and try to find a plumber on a friday afternoon, we filled our faces in the decidedly un Abu Abu country restaurant called Karmei Zait (the Olive Groves) in Kfar Hassidim.

    

14th day (The Crown Jewel)

14th day, 6th leg (the crown jewel)

This is going to be a short blog for a long route.

I was going to name this entry "the missing link" given that we'd decided to skip past it in the summer so that we could come back and do it in a more appropriate season, like spring. In hindsight the decision was the correct one. Today's walk was so striking in so many different ways that it was like the most precious jewel in the collection, the crown jewel.
Essentially Nachal Amud takes lots of features of legs already walked and rolls them up into a 20 km edited highlights. In fact we probably could have saved ourselves 150 km of sweat and a year's full of Fridays and just have done Nachal Amud. But then we would have missed out on all the meals.
So, what did we have today? Let's see. Streams, brooks, a waterfall, a pool, springs and dirty brackish water. A varied array of forests, scrub, weeds, big trees, little trees, evergreen trees, deciduous trees. And wildflowers. Lots and lots and lots of wildflowers. Steep descents, gentle slopes, cliff ledges, scrambling up rocks, descending on our bums, hard walking, good paths and rock-hopping. I could cut and paste the best parts of other walks and end up with this amazing swathe of nature.

In most of the blogs till know I've roughly outlined the route with observations along the way. As I've already mentioned, today's walk compressed lots of what we'd seen already into one walk, so there's no need for me to describe the first part which was highmountain terrain (by Israel's standard at any rate) – see leg 4. Then there was water – see leg 3. And so on. As it is I fear that there's an element of repetition in the blogs, so I won't make that sin here. Anyhow, how many times in one piece can I say "beautiful" , "amazing" , stunning" and "Breathtaking"? I would wear out my thesaurus trying to find ways to describe the varied beauty of today's leg. And if there is one overwhelming observation from today's walk then it is indeed the variety. When you start at 700 metres above sea level and descend to 80 metres below sea level, then it's only natural that in the 20 kilometres of trail you get such a variety of views, terrain, flora and fauna.

Not only did we go back one last time to an area that we had otherwise finished, we were reminded that this area of Israel is relatively untouched in relation to the rest of our squashed up little country. More nature, less humans.  This is a wild, unkempt (but well and freshly marked) trail. There's no settlements, Jewish or Arab, above, below or in front. No dirt tracks that can accommodate buggies or 4*4's. There was no cheating here, no driving as far as we could and then begrudgingly getting out to walk. We saw very few other walkers. A day tripping couple here, some lost Russians there, but for most of the time it was just us and the din of birds chirping. Have I mentioned previously that we like our nature to ourselves? Well we got it today. We were out in nature with no human evidence other than a number of ruined bridges and mills that suggested that in a bye gone era this area had more human activity than today. A welcome regression.

And then there are the wildflowers. I know that in the previous blog I described the impressive array of wildflowers but I think I'm going to have to engage in some creative editing to the previous entry. It was a barren dessert compared to today. There were the vivid colors of the flowers in full bloom throughout the entire walk, sometimes at our feet and at other times like walking through a jungle, a multi-colored head high jungle of assorted flowers. It certainly gave justification to our skipping over this route and waiting to do it at the right time. This time. The perfect weather also added more justification, as if we needed it.

I guess after 35 years and endless hours spent talking about business, career advice, legal advice, advice to the government and to the Palestinians, children, the old days and lots, lots more the inane starts to filter through. How else could you explain the amount of time spent on continuing a subject that we started last time? It arose when Tracey made a comment about the inconvenience of having to deal with nature calling whilst walking through nature. How unfair it is that half the world's population can just stand there and go with the flow, so to speak, whilst the other half have to pull down pants, squat etc etc. I don't think I need to go into more details! So I came up with the idea of a travel penis, a device that can be easily, um, applied, and would save the need to squat. That was last walk. This time we continued to flesh out the idea. Garry, always the entrepreneur, came up with the name…the piss-tool. We may shape it to resemble a hand-gun, though the original and natural penis shape probably has ergonomical advantages .We're going to buy the rights to use the Charley's Angel emblem of 3 silhouetted women holding guns.

Perfect. Maybe the logo should be a water-pistol? In any case if anyone has a better name or marketing idea then send it in. If it's used the sender will receive a free product. At any rate it will go into the pantheon of inventions that I've thought up over the years. By the way, it's my idea and no-one who reads this is allowed to rip it off.

Nachal Amud is roughly divided into 2 sections, the upper and lower. The upper is, as you might expect, quite mountainous. The lower section is largely through a deep dry ravine with lots of caves etched into the walls. In some way it was a bit of a mistake doing the whole nachal in one go. By the time we got to the lower section we were starting to tire and get pressed for time. Nothing you can do about it. We took a day off work so we wouldn't have to worry about time and yet life outside the trail insisted on trying to interfere with our walking, whether it be Yael's swimming lesson that Yoni wanted to be at or my twins' bar-mitzvah lesson that I had to meet them at. So between fatigue and life we appreciated the lower section less and that's a pity. It doesn't have that wild mountain beauty of the upper section but it certainly has a lot to admire. If we'd had time and energy my two friends would have happily sent me exploring one of the caves while they rested, patiently tolerating my love for dank holes. It was not to be, however. In fact, in the end we were so tired, or so anxious to get back to our lives that we didn't even look for the local Abu Abu. And that's a pity as well.