27th day (Overnight Done Right)

I awoke bright and early the next morning, refreshed after a good night's sleep. Yoni and Garry didn't get up nearly as energetically, ascertaining that my snoring kept them awake all night. They even went as far as claiming that the aural resonance was so deafening that the air-force scrambled fighter planes, thinking that our friends in Gazza were testing a new type of missile. Garry tried to record my snoring using the microphone on his cell-phone but upon play-back all I heard was the sweet sounds of contented sleep. As far as I'm concerned, I suspect a conspiracy…their claims are identical to those Susan has been complaining about these last twenty something years. In any case, I heard mumbled threats of locking me in a sound-proof cell next time we do an overnight.
Snoring or not, it's amazing what a good cup of coffee and a brie, avocado and prosciutto sandwich can do to shake off the cobwebs. After preparing rolls for the day's walk, by 7.30 we'd loaded the cars and bade farewell to the Galon guesthouse. Upon consultation with the book it was decided we would park at Moshav Achuzam and thus save ourselves a kilomtre's walk along the road. Yoni was especially happy with Achuzam, as it fitted very nicely into his Negev-retro theory. Here was a moshav that hasn't changed since the 60's. In fact, I think most of the houses hadn't been painted since the 60's. Many moshavim today have a new community neighbourhood built within the settlement. These community neighbourhoods offer relatively cheap land and building to people who want to live in a country environment but still desire all the advantages of middle-class living. Yoni and I both live in community settlements. Time-warped Achuzam doesn't seem to have heard of this very common trend. This old-style moshav looks a bit run-down, with chickens houses or small dairies adjacent to their unkempt properties. The roads are pot-holed and the cars either dilapidated bombs or modern, expensive, status-mobiles. Not many standard Hyundies here. It appeared as if modernity had skipped past this corner of the Negev.
Unfortunately the trail markings at Achuzam were no-where to be found. According to the second book, the shvil takes an entirely different route, some 3 km to the south. We've noticed minor discrepancies between the two books but never to this degree. Eventually we found shvil markings that had been painted over. The route had obviously changed and no-one bothered to inform the poor old bugger who wrote the first book. Once we realized that the updated route avoided road walking (a wise update, indeed) then we parked at Tel Keshet and drove to the starting point at Lachish, where we'd finished the day before. By 8.30, a little later than planned, we were on the track. With only 14 easy kilometres to do, the later-than-planned start was not critical.
It wasn't surprising that the first part of the walk was the same as the previous day's; vineyards. Occasionally we walked between the rows and found bunches of grapes still on the vine that hadn't been picked. Left on the vine they dry out slowly and become raisins. Intensely sweet, moist and natural we gobbled them straight off the vine and they were delicious.

Not far from the start we walked past what looked like an agricultural equipment dumping ground, full of used irrigation piping, large plastic sheets and some old abandonned tires. Next to it was a small sign in Hebrew and next to that a large sign in Thai. Obviously it's the Thai workers, who do nearly all the agricultural work in Israel today, that needed the  instruction regarding the dump. I don't know if this mess was indeed a dump or a sort of recycling depot. Perhaps if they needed to lay pipes or use a large black plastic sheet  they would take it from here rather than use costly new equipment. My Thai isn't good enough to understand the sign so I can't be certain what this place was meant to be used for.

We did spot, however, an interesting piece of recycling. In an area of small, newly planted vines, the tender trunks were protected by Tnuva 1-litre milk cartons. Quite a weird sight, walking past a young vineyard with row after row of milk cartons on the ground around thin tree-trunks. Maybe it’s a new hybrid, milk flavored grape variety, or a ready grown grape milkshake.

From memory (in my case an unreliable piece of equipment), we saw our first ultra-light in the almost two years of shvilling, buzzing overhead like an overgrown mosquito. The pilot did a couple of passes over us, once flying low enough to wave at us. Unfortunately the slow shutter response of my camera and slow neuron response of my brain, prevented me from successfully taking a photo, but you'll have to believe me on this one. Garry and I thought flying in an ultra-light over the region would be a great experience. Yoni, still traumatized by jumping out of a plane with just a parachute on his back during his army service, is only willing to leave the ground these days protected by at least 20 tons of metal and powered by a minimum of 2, preferably 4, jet engines.

Not for the first time on the shvil, we saw horses and riders gallop past. Usually we see them in small groups of 3 or 4. Today it was a full posse, at least twenty in number. There were no bad guys in this posse, however. Each rider politely waved us a cheery hello as he rode past on his trusty steed. Very civilised.

Gradually the scenery changed from vineyards to wheat fields. The wheat fields this time of year are very attractive, especially when they totally surround you. We've only had one serious bout of rain this season so the wheat has only just sprouted. The deep brown colored earth is still visible under the green of the wheat sprouts and with the soft winter light it's a very pleasant walking environment… especially if you're walking through gentle, undulating hills that cause barely a drop of sweat. If we did start to sweat, there's no shortage of trees sprinkled along the path to rest under. And if a single tree is not enough, then there are a few small eucalyptus groves of about twenty trees along the way. Very considerate.

Eventually the fields gave way to uninteresting bare terrain, but so far over these 2 days we'd walked 16 pleasant kilometres, so a bit of boredom is nothing to complain about. As if to further remind us that Shvil Yisrael is not all pretty rural scenery, Mr. shvil painter has us walk towards, beside and eventually under kvish 6. Just when we thought we'd seen the last of it, up it pops. And it's just as much an eye-sore in the Negev as in the centre of the country. (Unless I'm driving on it. Then it's a god-send.)

As we were about to cross under kvish 6 we walked passed a single concrete block in the middle of the path with the familiar shvil sign painted on it. The block had no obvious purpose other than to be there so Mr shvil painter could put a sign on it. How and why Mr shvil painter convinced the Shvil Elders to drop this concrete obelisk in the middle of no-where is a mystery to me. Of the series of books I am planning to publish when we finish the shvil, sometime around the turn of the next decade, this anomily  will certainly appear in the volume titled "Mysteries of the Shvil", alongside "The Shvil on a Full Stomach" and "The Driver's Guide to the Shvil". Does anyone know a brave (foolhardy?) publisher?

We'd left the agriculture behind and were now walking above the banks of nachal (creek) Adura'im. It's a dry creek that only runs when it rains, where flash floods run through the creeks in the Negev and the water disappears as quickly as it appears. Thorny acacia trees dot the banks of the creek. We found ourselves one particularly large and shady one to rest under. We sat down on a bed of small drying orange acacia berries and finished off our lunch sandwiches. Ah…this is the life! Thirty minutes later we were back at Garry's car, having completed the easiest 14, or 22 km including the previous day, that you can imagine.

Getting back to Yoni's car entailed making quite a large loop along the no. 40 road and then kvish 6. Boring. We thought that if we drove along a few dirt tracks we'd find a short cut, make the drive more interesting and save about 15 minutes driving. We were driving in Garry's Mazda 3 which, with three grown adults inside, sits about 10 cm off the road. When the "road" is a track that resembles an obstacle course, with myriad obstructions 11 cm or higher, well, need I continue? At one point I got out of the car and cleared rocks from the path (I wouldn't even call it a track) so the car could pass. In the beginning the dirt track was quite reasonable but as we continued "reasonable" changed to poor which changed to terrible. And suddenly there was no track at all. Just a field, a shiny blue Mazda 3 and Yoni and I walking in front or behind, trying to help Garry navigate through. Seinfeld, anyone? Eventually we got to an unsealed road that seemed like an autobahn after what the car had been through. This road came to the main road that we'd wanted to get to in the first place. After 45 minutes of Leyland Brothers impersonation (the Australians will understand) we arrived to the point that allowed us to save 15 minutes.

That was the last of the adventures, unless stopping off for ice cream along the much shvil-maligned kvish 6 counts.

All in, I can safely say that we implemented the lessons from our first overnight trip; This time we had an easy first day, we prepared food and water for the next day, we weren't out till too late, we got a decent night's sleep (or at least I did) and we picked a really nice route that suited us. There's no doubt that the decision to jump forward was the right one. We'll do a few more Negev walks before going back to the area around Jerusalem. We're really looking forward to them.

26th day (Skipping Forward to the Negev)

There are a number of ways I could start this chapter.
I can start by explaining how over the next two days we were going to implement lessons learnt from our previous overnight leg. I can start by saying how we were simultaneously excited and filled with trepidation about starting a two day, overnight leg. I can start by explaining why we were at Beit Govrin, about 60 shvil km from where we finished last time. Or I can start by announcing that I was taking my brand new hiking pole for a test run.
Instead I'll just start by saying that at one thirty on a glorious Thursday afternoon we found ourselves walking down a bitumen road, something that we have fastidiously avoided these past 2 years, because the maps in both of the not all together reliable guide books that we use had us believe that the beginning of today's leg was opposite the petrol station where we'd parked and not 300 metres down the road. Hmpf. Not to worry. That was about the worst experience we had over the next 24 hours. Can't complain about that.

We turned off the road onto a track that led us through some fields. We immediately forgot that we'd just broken, through no fault of our own, one of our cardinal shvil rules. It was good to get back to some good old fashioned shvil walking that was similar to the first year's tracks. We were back in the country, away from the "almost" country, with construction and highways around the next bend, as in the last few legs. It might be the outback, but it is very different from the terrain of those first walks through the Galil. Takes a genius to see that, doesn't it? It was also exciting to walk through an area that we had never been through. (Sort of…Yoni and Garry did recount stories of their army days in this area in the middle of the previous century).

We had decided to skip forward to Beit Govrin, past the area of the Jerusalem Corridor and Ayala Valley for three reasons. Firstly, that area is apparently very beautiful, yet hasn't become lush and green due to the late rains. We'll return there during the spring and fully appreciate it. Secondly, we felt that we were driving too far to do too little walking. We preferred to get some longer, overnight walks done. Thirdly, once it gets even a little bit warmer, the Negev will be too hot to walk in. It's best to exploit the winter in this region. The area going up to Jerusalem will remain cooler longer.

The first landmark we came to was a large, lone building called "The Villa". It was owned by a wealthy Palestinian from Hebron, who in the 1940's sold land to the Keren Kayemet. He was found dead inside the house in 1946. Well there's a surprise.

In the beginning the landscape consisted of open brown fields or scrubby, rocky, semi desert with an occasional large tree, planted by nature 50 years ago, solely in order to give us shade to rest under during one of our drink stops. The terrain was perfect for walking, as was the 22 degree dry winter weather. Here in the Negev the expanses are much bigger than in our cramped Galil, not to mention the claustrophobic centre of the country. Rolling hills roll as far as the horizon. If the path led through a just sprouted wheat field, it surrounded us in all directions. It may not be Texas or the Great Outback, but compared to what we're used to it was definitely big.

On one of our drink stops a question was put to the quorum: Who, in your opinion, do you prefer…Microsoft, Apple or Google? The answer led to a very interesting discussion about marketing, branding, perception and image. Such is the wide nature of our discussions; sometimes totally inane, sometimes nostalgic and sometimes challenging. Comments on the subject are most welcome.

This region is known for grape growing. "Invei Tali" (Tali grapes) which are Israel's most widely sold and sweetest table grapes are grown around Moshav Lachish, the area we were walking towards today. Very good quality wine grapes are also grown here. The  warm winter has left the vines with their leaves still attached. Each variety of grape seems to have a different colour of autumn foliage. Wandering through the vineyards was like walking in the middle of a giant patchwork quilt, each section a different colour and us, tiny ants walking up the seams. The New Englanders amongst us who may be reading this might roll their eyes and let out a bored, patronising yawn. After all, it isn't Vermont in September, but for us, in the sometime monochrome Israeli countryside, it was pretty special.

The range of colours of the different varieties of grape vine was enhanced by the light. It's very difficult to describe, but the afternoon winter light is much softer than harsh, glary summer light. The browns of the soil, the grey of the rocks, the different shades of green of the trees, wheat and grape vines look so different under these conditions. We're so used to the harsh Israeli sun-light that you really notice it when you see some of this softer, more pleasant light. I, at least, can't remember seeing light and colours like this in Israel.

After a couple of hours of mixing wheat fields, vineyards and semi-desert we got to Garry's car. A lovely short stroll that would leave us refreshed for the longer part of the leg tomorrow.

The walking had finished, but our day certainly hadn't.

We'd booked a room ("a"=singular) at the country accommodation at kibbutz Galon, about 15 minutes away from Lachish, where we finished. Country is about right, or rustic for one of a better word. We're not fussy, which is just as well, as the room had 4 beds, a television, a kettle and a bathroom. It was clean and was all we needed. Some cups, basic crockery and cutlery would have been nice, but I'm not complaining… well, not very much, at least. We didn't work up much of a sweat but there was plenty of hot water anyway, so we could make ourselves beautiful for the upcoming dinner with our daughters. But more of that later.

We wanted to buy supplies for breakfast and sandwiches for the next day but the general store at Galon proved to be as spartan as the guest-room. Strange, within Galon there was an array of food options. A gourmet (so they claim) African restaurant, a pizza joint and even fish and chips. It's as if they're saying "don't bother trying to find anything to buy in the general store, eat out instead".
Luckily, a couple of kilometres away at the neighbouring kibbutz, Beit Nir, the general store was far better equipped. One of the lessons we'd learnt from our only previous sleep-over was to ensure that we didn't walk on an empty stomach or let it empty en-route. We stocked up on basic items such as Brie, prosciutto, fine hard cheese, hot pepper salad and whole-wheat rolls. Oh, yeah, some non-essentials as well, such as tomatoes, cottage cheese, milk, coffee, and avocado. We weren't going to starve tomorrow.

Beit Nir itself is as well kept as its general store. Yoni has a theory that large swathes of the Negev exist in a time warp, left that way to show the world that the "old" Israel of the 60's still exists, the Israel that the Jewish Agency made films about to send to the diaspora. Beit Nir has perfectly kept lawns, families (women, actually) pushing their babies around in the old square baby buggies whilst the men toil, pulling irrigation pipes through the field. The dining hall is still the centre of the community and next to it stands the old water tower, empty and useless but still part of that classic scene. There aren't many kibbutzim left today that still have that idyllic picture but Beit Nir is one of them.

Back to our slightly run down Galon to rest, shower and get ready for the evening ahead which entailed picking my Sivan up from Eshel HaNassi where she's doing a year of voluntary work and Yoni's daughter Lior from the army base where she is serving in the armed forces, just outside Be'er Sheva. We were taking them for dinner in a fine Be'er Sheva tapas bar. I don't know who were more excited, Yoni and I for taking our daughters out or our daughters at being taken out by their fathers.

I have always had a rather negative opinion of Be'er Sheva, without knowing it, of course. I imagined it as a parochial country town full of crime and hard living, in keeping with the 60's time warp Negev. Naturally, Tuval, Kedarim and Manof are so perfectly cool and centre-of-the universe, allowing me to look down my nose at the capital of the Negev with disdain. I can't claim to know Be'er Sheva much better after one meal but I will say that the Smilensky Tapas Bar is a cool place that wouldn't be out of place in downtown Tel Aviv, if not Barcelona. Tapas and vino beats Abu Abu humus, that's for sure. Even better with our grown-up daughters.

Yoni's journey back to Lior's base and then back to our abode was considerably longer than Galon via Sivan's place and in a totally different direction, so I decided to go with him in order to keep him company. Garry would take Sivan back without me. Trouble is we don't know the area too well (at all) and Garry is not great at following instructions. Just ask Kim. It took many minutes of patient (or confusing) instruction and eventual writing the directions on a napkin in order for Garry to feel that he could make his way back to our lodgings. Garry was asleep already by the time Yoni and I got back to Galon, so I guess that means that his paper napkin got him back ok. Naively we had hoped to be in bed by ten, applying another lesson from our previous Tel Aviv overnight. We were, however, still in the restaurant at ten, but by midnight I was happily snoring in our little room.

As we settled into our soft mattresses, I couldn't help but feel as if we were 15 years old again, at an overnight Habonim youth movement camp. That's not a bad feeling when your 50 years old.

25th day (Long Drive, Short Walk)

On the 26th day of the Hebrew month of Kislev we start the celebration of the Festival of Lights, Hanukkah, where we remember the Jewish uprising in the year 3597 (164 B.C.E.) against the Greeks who controlled the land of Israel. The uprising was based in the stronghold of the Hasmonean dynasty, the town of Modi'in.
On the 27th day of the Hebrew month of Kislev, in the year 5771, 2nd day Hanukkah, Paul, Yoni, Garry , Tracey and Kim (Garry's wife, for those that don't know her) got out of Yoni's car which was parked a few hundred metres from a brand new shopping mall in the modern city of Modi'in, and started walking.
As is so often the case, it took us a little while to actually find the orange, blue and white trail markers, especially since we were driving the first few kilomtres that otherwise would have us walk next to road No.1, the Tel Aviv - Jerusalem highway. No way. Better to look for the marking in the comfort of a car rather than walk stupidly around in circles in the hot winter sun.

Once we found the the trail markings we set off, hopeful that we'd get back to something that resembles the "real" shvil...walking through nature. Of course it's ridiculous to cut out all evidence of modernity on a trail that is meant to show the walker a slice of Israel. But as I've pointed out numerous times over the last few chapters, "been there, done that" already. Unfortunately, the start didn't auger well. Parking a couple of hundred metres from a new mall on the outskirts of Israel's newest city, we started walking through a barren open cut that was ready for future development. The trail led us away from the mall and the unnaturally opened clearance and followed the route of road 431, a highway that links the city of Modi'in to the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem highway, road No 1. If 4 lane highways aren't particularly interesting on the tarmac-top side, then from below they're down-right ugly. With views of concrete pilons and tangled interchanges in front  and cars and road signs overhead the first half hour left us with the impression of underbelly wasteland. Just like kvish shesh from the previous walk, just with a different route number. Exactly what we didn't want. But once we passed under the said route 431, the highways and cars stayed in the background and the shvil transformed into a pretty little country path. True, the cranes and shells of yet to be completed high rise apartments loomed on the horizon, but it was far from immediate. It may not be the green expanses of the Mt. Meron area, but the civilisation that we were trying so hard to escape was pushed well and truly into the background. Actually there's probably no-where in Israel that's particularly green. We're facing the worst drought in memory. It hasn't rained at all in Israel since about the end of February.

The path went through open brush and past olive fields which in turn led to a small un-named eucalyptus forest. The weather was perfect. Unfortunately. We need rain, not 22 degree mild walking days. Still, it was all very pleasant. However, if we'd been in this area this time last year, after heavy seasonal rains, this area would have been quite stunning. The walking was easy. Not boringly flat and not Himalayan mountain ascent. These are gentle foothills that soon enough will climb steeply into the Jerusalem corridor. We had one slightly stiffer climb that ascended to Tel Regem. From this hilltop perch we could see to the west all the way down the coastal plain to the sea. To the east, over the new Modi'in high-rises, the Jerusalem Highlands and Yehuda Mountains. Some trees atop an ancient tel were exactly the right place for tea and croissants.

This hilltop is a good example of a tel. A tel is a hill that is formed through the buildup of civilisation upon civilisation, one on top of the other. From underneath the tree where we were sipping our tea, all you could see was a series of broken cobbled walls. However if we were to cut a cross-section through the hill we would see evidence of numerous different civilisations through different eras, perhaps all the way back to the Maccabis and the Hasmoneans. Who knows?. There are hundreds of such tels throughout the country, too numerous for the antiquities authority to explore. This tiny country has so much unknown and unexplored history.

Beneath us, in what appeared to be the middle distance, was Moshav Gimzo, which we knew we had to pass in order to enter the Ben-Shemen forest and ultimately Garry's car. It looked at least an hour away but looks were deceiving. Barely 20 minutes had passed after we'd left the hilltop Tel Regem and we were already passing the moshav and entering the last phase of the walk. This last phase was only about two hours after we'd started, including the nice relaxed tea break.

It's been a long time, over a year in my opinion, since we've passed an empty, inviting picnic table en route. When the picnic table is in the shade, in the entrance to Israel's largest forest and our sandwiches were still weighing down our back-packs, how could we resist the temptation? We didn't even try. It's not like we were  hungry. We'd only  finished our tea and croissants less than an hour ago. It's just that we'd been pining for exactly this a scene for so long.
It's funny how some shvil traumas never leave you. The memory of the park ranger that made us pay to sit at an empty table in an empty national park back at the very beginning still haunts us. We expected Suleiman El-Haib to jump out of the bushes at any moment and demand payment. It didn't happen and after 20 minutes of chatting over home-made gourmet sandwiches we dragged ourselves up in order to finish the last 30 minutes of walking.

If the start was ominous, with a mall, open cut clearings and the underbelly of interconnecting highways, then the finish was sublime; 24 degree temperatures under the forest canopy  with friends. Ah, this is the life. We may not have progressed very far down the shvil but it was a very enjoyable way to spend a Friday morning.

As Israel has supposedly dragged itself into modernity, a lot of the old, hilariously incorrect translations of Hebrew into English have disappeared. You don't see "lamp chops" on menus very much any more. The Hebrew word "melacha"  can be translated either as light industry or crafts. A sign on highway 431that pointed to an industrial area translated melacha not as light industry but as "craft area". Both quaint and embarrassing that no-one thought to cross check the translation with an English speaker for the signs along a major road. All 5 of us immediately noted the inappropriate translation. Oh well.

Naturally (or not) we weren't very hungry when we finished today's stroll and in any case didn't feel that we'd "earned" our post shvil humus in the barely 2 hours of actual walking that we'd just completed. But it was only 11 a.m., too early to make our way north. The weather, as stated, was pleasantly warm so we figured  an ice cold beer was exactly what we needed (an interesting definition of the word "needed", I dare say). In fact, the new mall opposite the car had an Irish pub that was open at this hour. Unfortunately it was open because they were having a bar-mitzvah party there and we weren't invited. The bottle shop down the road was giving away tastings from a boutique brewery about 20 minutes from my place on Tuval. Strange how we travelled 2 hours, walked 2 hours and came to a mall in the centre of the country in order to sample beer from a brewery 20 minutes from home. The beer was quite good but they didn't  have any cold ones that we could buy, so we settled for Ben and Jerry's. Not beer, but not a bad alternative.

I feel I need to add a serious word here. On the Friday we walked, the Carmel Mountain national park was ablaze. The entire country was in shock over the terrible tragedy, including us. It is both sobering and strange to think that the track that we'd walked down 6 months ago no longer exists and that whole beautiful area is now just a charred remain.