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For the first year or so we trekked up and down mountains, forded rivers and ambled through forests. Human settlement was either the ruined remains of a 2000 year old village or a Bedouin encampment. Occasionally we'd scurry through an Arab village or skirt around a kibbutz or moshav. We were in the country. Then we hit the sea and lonely beaches turned into a stroll through the city of Netanya. From there its been boring sunbaked tracks that have tried to weave through Israel's cluttered midlands that are roughly known as the Dan area. A trail that calls itself the Israel National Trail can't exactly ignore the megalopolis that is based around Tel Aviv, but enough's enough. We get the idea already. Let's get back to some good old fashioned country walking, hopefully as soon as next time, because today we had all the trademarks of civilisation, in surplus.
We started at one of the entrances to Israel's largest forest, the Ben Shemen forest, heading north, adjacent to kvish shesh (route 6), the highway that runs down the middle of this narrow country. The finishing point was at Elad, the Haredi city where we also finished last time. "We" included the original 3, plusTracey, our permanent guest and Yvonne, an old school friend who we'd previously spent the night with (no, no, not like that. Please. We're happily married 50 year-olds) in Tel Aviv after a previous leg.
Great. Finally a forest, we thought. Just two problems.
One. It was only our starting point and we were walking north, away from the forest
Two. Today was the Israeli Bicycle Riders association annual jamboree. There were 500 cars in a car park meant for 100, each vehicle packed with 3 environmentally minded cyclists. (So why were there so many gas guzzling 4*4's, I ask?) Since Yoni's car doesn't have a single, let alone triple bike rack attached to it we were quickly identified as non cyclists meaning that the cyclists buzzed around, displaying no respect for the fact that a car is bigger, stronger and heavier than a bicycle and thus didn't bother to get out of the way. By the time Yoni parked, through no fault of his own he'd almost run over a dozen cyclists. With a bit more effort maybe he'll succeed next time.
The area around the starting point at Mitzpeh Modi'in was criss-crossed with dry hilly paths, perfect for mountain biking. They swarmed around us like mosquitoes. We'd had none of this in the Meron forest, to be sure.
On numerous occasions we've called into question the hidden motives the shvil elders and their proxy, Mr Shvil Painter, have in determining the route. Once again, in the first hour of walking the path seemed to go around in circles, backtrack or simply take a long-cut when it was obvious that there was a shorter route between two points. And once again we had more than a little trouble actually finding the markers that were hidden on the backs of trees or under rocks. We should be used to it by now.
After 3 km we had a short sharp climb to the top of Tel Hadid which is meant to be a reasonably intact ruin that dates back to the Bronze age. The view of the surrounding towns, as far as Tel Aviv, was pretty enough, despite the haze caused by the unseasonally hot mid-November weather. But ruins? nada. No-where to be seen.
Every now and again we'd stop for water under the shade of a nice broad tree. At one such stop there was even a stone bench, set up by the Keren Kayemet in loving memory of Myrtle Goldstein of Long Beach. Question is, why was this lovely stone bench, on top of a hill overlooking the surrounding countryside next to a large leafy tree and not under it? So there we were, sitting on the ground under the said tree, with the empty bench in front of us. We expected the candid camera crew to jump out at any moment..
Today's highlights included a chicken coup with that unmistakable smell of chicken shit and having our regular herbal tea and chocolate croissants in the company of a somewhat bemused Bedouin shepherd who obviously couldn't understand why 5 middles aged English speakers, as if dropped from the planet Mars, would want to walk through his grazing area. Co-incidentaly the bewilderment had crossed our minds as well. After passing under the fore-mentioned kvish 6 we noticed a Keren Kayemet sign pointing to Shvil Habustanim (the orchard trail). Great, we thought. A bit of shade and pretty little orchard paths. By now, after 350 shvil kilometres, we should know better. 200 metres on, the shvil has us turning right, past the Nablat ruins, whilst the way to the orchard path went left. We got prickly-pear (sabra) cactuses rather than orchards.
Perhaps because of the not too interesting route, or perhaps because we hadn't spent more than an evening with Yvonne in these past 30 years, our conversation was slightly more, shall we say, broad than the usual. It ranged from discussions about our youth and our parents, garden gnome liberation, definitions of "weird", the Great Ocean Road, sex, our shnat year in Israel in 1978 and the various escapades we got up to...and turds. Yvonne was fascinated that we saw horse, sheep, cow and human excrement along the way. She's definitely been living in New York too long.
Tracey lives in a moshav in the north but works at the headquarters of the Osem-Nestle conglomerate in the Shoham Industrial Park. Shvil Yisrael, after crossing barren hills, goes right through the heart of the Shoham industrial park. "Heart" is probably not the most apt description for this soul-less windswept collection of giant buildings, whose only reason for existence is its proximity to kvish 6. What could be more surreal than Tracey, who drives an hour and a half every day down kvish 6 to the Osem HQ, walking through the very same industrial estate, past her every day parking spot, on her day off? Then again, driving 2 1/2 hours each way just to walk 4 or 5 hours is just as insane, but that's exactly what we're doing these days.
Walking through a sterile industrial park will not be remembered as one of the shvil's high points. Leaving the industrial area to continue through a quarry and infrastructure work site for the extension of said industrial park is even worse, but such was the nature of today's walk.
For the third time today we crossed under kvish 6, this time through a 200 metre long tunnel taken straight from the set of "Revenge of the Zombies". The other side of the kvish was no more exciting than the one we'd just crossed from, but eventually the path led us to a eucalyptus forest which reminded us all of the old country. It's been close to a hundred trail kilometres since we walked though a forest and this is a very pleasant one at that. A perfect place to sit down and eat our sandwiches. After finishing our sandwiches, granola bars, dried fruit, cut vegetables and hand made biscuits, all that was left for us to do was stroll on through the forest till we found Tracey's car waitingfor us at the end.
I know I've put a lot of keybThe walking may have finished but the mucking around hadn't. We had to get Yvonne to the Rosh Ha'Ayin train station before the trains stopped for Shabbat. Without going into painstaking detail, it involved us driving around in circles, navigating around the tangle of highways in the centre of the country and eventually finding the ramp that would get us to the local road that would lead us to the station. Another Seinfeld scene, with 5 adults in a small sedan, voicing 5 different opinions about what was the right way to go. Eventually we got to the station, farewelled Yvonne and picked up Gal, who gave us a skilled exhibition of speed eating. He is the Usain Bolt of shwarma.
As for us, we had images of a good humus to whet our appetites but unfortunately Humus HaGingi at Kibbutz Einat was closed for shabbos already. We had to make do with lemonade, which took 25 minutes in coming, from the Fairy Bakery next door. We could have eaten at the Sushi Sosho next door to the bakery but felt that sushi was an inappropriate meal to end a shvil walk. Still, it did make us wonder about how much kibbutz has changed when you have a humus joint, artisanal bakery and sushi bar in the middle of a kibbutz rather than the traditional communal dining room. Hungry and grumpy at not having our post shvil humus, we headed home, northwards...on kvish 6, of course.
