Today's leg was a landmark. Or two landmarks.
Firstly, we came to the conclusion that we had walked so far south that it made no sense getting up before the crack of dawn in order to travel 2 hours just to start the leg, then travel 2 hours home at the end. Instead, from here we will start to do overnights, 2 legs in a weekend. Yippee!!
Secondly, Sol joined us for this leg. So far we've had a family day and a number of guest walkers, all of whom we knew from our past in Australia. Sol is different. He himself is a shviller, doing various legs of the shvil in a guided group, substantially larger than Paul, Garry and Yoni, through Machon Avshalom. He discovered this blog a while ago and has been in constant contact with me since, giving tips as to what lies ahead and feedback on what I'd written. We were therefore happy to have our first "outsider" join us for a leg.
Given that it was Rosh Hashana, we wanted to spend the morning with our families and not walk through the midday heat. We agreed that we would meet at 3 p.m. and walk this beach leg into the evening. (Garry and I brought torches in case evening turned into night. Anything is possible with us.) After some re-arranging we set a 2 p.m. starting time, determining to meet Sol at Hof HaZuk, Tel Aviv's most northern beach and to walk north to Poleg, Netanya's southern beach.
Things never seem to work out as simply as we plan them. Before starting to walk we had to drop one car off at the end point. No problem. Done it 20 times so far. Except this time, the 21st time, I managed to bog my van in sand in the car park at the end. Another landmark. I won't bore the reader with endless details of how wheels spun, rubber burnt and the engine overloaded. Nor will I go into the different attempts at digging sand, pushing boards under the wheels and various other forms of pre-shvil energy wasting. After 30 minutes my van finally limped out of the sandy carpark. Poor Sol had already arrived at the designated meeting point only to have us make him wait because of our stupidity.
But the stupidity didn't end there. There are those deliberately stupid Hollywood films, often starring Will Ferrel, where the characters are SO moronic that it just can't actually be and there lies the comedy. Well guess what? I bogged the car a second time! Let Will Ferrel beat that! After leaving the carpark we decided to go back and move Yoni's car closer to the actual end point at the beach. For some inexplicable reason I drove back into the carpark and yes, got bogged a second time. Brain-dead. Moron. Imbecile. Ignoramus. I'm surprised Yoni and Garry didn't just leave me there, forcing me to use the half a wit that I had working at the time to figure out how to extradite myself from this mess. In any case, 20 minutes later and with the help of a kind but somewhat amused local who lent us a tow rope and showed us where the tow bars were on both our vehicles, we were finally on our way. Sol took to being made to wait an hour by three clowns very well. At 3 p.m. we set off for the last beach leg of Shvil Yisrael.
Garry, always the beach-comber, was a little melancholy at the thought of not walking along the beach again after this leg. I was of the opinion that I understand already the idea of the Mediterranean Sea and the beach, enjoyed it whilst it lasted but was just as happy to tick the box and move on to the next vista the shvil would present us. Yoni just didn't want sand dunes.
Hof Hazuk is the beach you go to if you want to be seen. The young, the famous and the beautiful hang out here. And us. Four fifty-year-old somethings trudging northwards, dodging multiple hard rubber balls shot between wooden paddle bats. There was so much matkot, Israel's national beach sport, being played ensuring that the pings of the countless balls on bats made conversation impossible. At risk of labelling myself a dirty old man, the amount of silicone and skimpy bikinis on show at this beach ensured that anyway, conversation was the last thing on my mind. When you've got it, flaunt it.
The crowds thinned quite quickly and soon enough we had the long sandy beach almost to ourselves
The rocky section ended as suddenly as it started,as if placed there as a test by some unseen Shvil God. We were back on the sandy beach again. Of course Mr Shvil Painter, or the unseen Shvil God, wasn't going to allow us a nice long boring beach walk. Once we got to Ga'ash the route left the beach and climbed up on to the cliff above the beach. Whilst the cliff was not high, the views over the beach below and out into the Mediterranean were beautiful, especially since the hour was late and thus the sun was starting to set in the west over the sea. Trouble was that we'd been walking three hours already and were starting to tire. The sand underfoot was loose, the terrain undulating and this made for difficult walking. Some, especially one who doesn't like sand dunes and was already injured, found the going especially hard and kept harking back to his days in basic training. Luckily it was twilight with a cool sea breeze to our backs. After four kilomtres of this cliff dune walking, which I dare say was actually both difficult and enjoyable, the path lead us back to the beach.
Back at the Hof Hatzuk carpark we bade farewell to a tired Sol and readied ourselves for the next part of our shvil experience. Whilst not strictly part of the shvil, the three country bumpkins prepared to meet up with an old friend and hit the big city.
Yvonne may not get the honour of being called a shviller, but all the same, seeing her for the first time since we all left school, 33 years ago (yes, really) was reason enough to prevent us from going back to our rented apartment and crashing out for the night. So first stop was Hof Hametzitzim for a cold beer and greasy french fries. Next, a steak at Boya at the Tel Aviv port complex. We finished off with a midnight ice cream at Iceberg. By the time we got back to the apartment, showered and dropped into bed, it was about one o'clock. We were only going to be shvilling once in Tel Aviv, so we exploited it to the end. However we also knew that we wanted to get up bright and early the next day, refreshed and ready for the 20 km walk down the Yarkon river. We paid for our late night the next day. But from a one a.m perspective, the day had certainly finished on a much better note than it had started.
p.s.Since Yoni refused to share a room, let alone a bed with me, Garry got stuck with my alleged sssnorrring
No comments:
Post a Comment