Friday 28 May 2010

17th day (Summer Remembered)

 
A few things about the summer.
Early starts. I picked Garry up in Carmiel at 5.45 and we met Yoni and Tracey in Yokne'am at 6.30. By 7.00 we'd poured out of Yoni's car at the carpark where we finished, tired and battered, a few weeks earlier. As I mentioned in the previous blog, we hadn't planned to stop here last time but falls and fatigue got the better of us. It was in all our minds to see what the first part of today's leg held for us, given that it was meant to be the end section of the previous leg. We were all curious as to how we would have fared had we continued last time and in fact that was the main point of conversation for the first ten minutes or so. That is whatever conversation there was between the puffing and the panting. Today's proceedings started by climbing 140 steps and then continuing upwards for a bit more, just for the fun. The answer to how we would have fared had we  continued last time could be summed up in one word. Badly. If we found this short sharp uphill challenging when we're bright and fresh I hate to think what we would have looked like had we attempted it with rolled ankles, stubbed toes, sleepless nights and bruised shoulders.
Early morning coolness is deceptive. As we climbed this first hill the temperature was still a very pleasant 18 or 19 degrees with a refreshing sea breeze. No problem, we thought to ourselves. We barely feel the heat. However, as the day grew longer and the shadows shorter, we remembered that last year we did short, downhill walks in the summer, not 15 kms of uphills and downhills. As we got to Yoni's car at around 1 p.m. the sun was high in the sky and the mercury higher in the thermometer. Thankfully the sea breeze stayed with us the whole day. It is true that we forgot the heat and the sweat as we wolfed down an excellent lunch at the local Faradees village Abu Abu, this time called Abu Ali. Highly recommended if your ever unfortunate enough to find yourself in Faradees. (The name is a corruption of the word paradise,and boy, is it a corruption)
Israel is a desert country. You can look back on blogs of winter and spring and read how we marvelled at the beauty of the winter lushness and spring flowers, but when it comes down to it we have barely 4 months of rain. The rains finish, the plants take what ever water is left in the soil, it all dries up and we're left with brown for 8 months. Thus a lot of the walk was through open dry weedy area. Summer. Of course we were walking through the Carmel Forest National Park, so we did have a fair bit of forest as well. The shvil book pointed out that parts of today's walk were through areas where the dry weeds were so high that they covered the shvil signs. For once a good word for Mr. Shvil Painter. He must have read my previous blog and been stung into action. There were a number of places where there were high thorny weeds surrounding the path, weeds that would indeed have blocked our view of the shvil markings and made walking very unpleasant. The path however had been recently cleared and the markings freshly painted. Hip hip, I say.
All in there wasn't a lot today that we hadn't seen already. 50 metres or so of walking through a prickly-pear cactus patch, in full flower. Very pretty but it was like walking through a dangerous maze, the path twisting right and left and us twisting right and left so as not to touch the maze walls.
As we skirted the outer edge of the Ein Hod artist colony  the path had us walk through someone's back yard. The landowner seemed not the least perturbed about having the Israel National Trail run through his yard and having hundreds of backpacking vagabonds wandering through his property every year. His gun wasn't even pointed at us.
 As we were walking up yet another hill, this time a forested one, we came upon a glade. In the middle of this shaded spot in the forest was a "green" bench made of recycled car tyres and cement painted pink and covered with the obligatory glass rhinestones. This enchanted little spot seemed like a secret meeting place for the forestelves (or maybe the local stone-heads that want to get off their faces in a place that no-one will find them) . Who built these benches in a clearing in the forest in the middle of nowhere remains a mystery. A quaint mystery.
Otherwise, more pretty forests, more views of the sea on the not far away horizon, more rocky open tracks, some harder, some easier to traverse, more (lot's more) sweating. All in a longish, hottish, hardish, unspectacularish day's walking. But still a whole lot of fun.
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