A fifth walker was joining us today, waiting for us at 5.30 at Tel Azika junction. Trouble is we got going late and arrived there at 5.45. Oh well, Mark has known us as many years as we've known each other, being an ex-Scopus boy like us and had no choice but accept our tardiness and apologies. I like it, that more than 30 years after graduating from a Melbourne school the 5 of us are about to walk up and down hills here in Israel, not far from Jerusalem. It's special.
The first hill was a steep climb up to Tel Azika but there are 2 alternative ways up which seemed more attractive. One was to leisurely drive up the road that leads to the car park of the site. The second is to battle a dirt track, testing the off road abilities of 2 low-to-the-ground Mazda 3's until you get to a point where even a Land Rover wouldn't pass. And which route did we take? No prize for guessing.
The first hill was a steep climb up to Tel Azika but there are 2 alternative ways up which seemed more attractive. One was to leisurely drive up the road that leads to the car park of the site. The second is to battle a dirt track, testing the off road abilities of 2 low-to-the-ground Mazda 3's until you get to a point where even a Land Rover wouldn't pass. And which route did we take? No prize for guessing.
From this point we climbed steeply by foot to the top of the hill, having saved about 300 metres of climbing buy taking the Mazda cross-country. Hmm. Regardless of how we got there, the site atop Tel Azika is impressive. This is the place of the legendary battle between David and Goliath and there are various plaques set in stone with quotes from the Books of Samuel and Chronicles, explaining what went on all those years ago. To the east we could see Bet Shemesh below us and Jerusalem not that far off in the distance. To the west, the plains that lead to Ashqelon on the coast. Even the summer haze didn't diminish the view. The route down from the tel had various archaeological features such as channels hewn out of the rock to lead water to cisterns and the usual stone walls.
We would soon discover that the purpose of walking down from one tel was to lead us up to another ruin. This was pretty much the course of the days walk; a variety of archeological sites linked by a variety of ways of getting to them (the cynics amongst the readers are probably translating "a variety of ways of getting to them" as different modes of transport, but have no fear, the entire route was covered on foot). In retrospect, between the addition of two extra co-walkers and the varied route, it would turn out to be one of the most interesting days that we'd done to date.
True to course, we walked down a hill and up a hill, passing en-route an unnamed ruin that was far better preserved than many others that we'd passed that were named and even have pages in Wikipedia with full descriptions in vernacular Albanian. Such is the nature of Wikipedia that it is a cornucopia of arcane subjects. Such too is the nature of Israel, that on any given hill you only need to scratch the surface and you're likely to find yet another ruin from one period or another. A short steep climb from the unnamed ruin led to the Shkalon ruins, which was a Byzantine agricultural settlement.
As would be expected in mid July, we were concerned about the heat as the day wore on. For the most part we walked through forest which ranged from the usual mix of planted pines and natural Mediterranean species, with some noticeable additions. At one point we passed an old gnarled olive tree, then another and yet one more. Soon we were walking through a wild olive forest. Olive trees are, of course, natural to the entire Middle East but there are very few wild, old growth forests of these beautiful trees. If most oak trees in a forest look pretty much the same, then every olive tree is twisted and stunted in its own individual way. It wasn't just the olive trees that stood out today. We passed many individual trees that stood out like natural sculptures. The forests we walked through gave welcome shade and were pleasant to walk through but weren't very different from many other forests that we've encountered on the 500 km that we've covered to date. I don't recall, however, such an assortment of trees that stood out in a way that I would remember them. There were trees that were deformed, growing inside rocks or ruins, or stood large and alone away from surrounding trees. They made this leg all the more memorable for me. When I consider that we will be continuing the shvil in the desert south of Arad as far as Eilat, this is probably the last forest we will walk through on the shvil. Forget forest…We're probably not goi
From the Shkalon ruins we had a nice long downhill which of course meant that we had to climb everything that we'd descended in order to reach the highest point of the walk, the Mesuah Lookout. This is a fire lookout which in order to do its' job, has to have clear and commanding views of the surrounding area. For us, that meant a stunning 360 degree panorama. The fire tower wasn't your average ladder with a platform on top, but looked as if Gaudi himself had been commissioned to do a special project here in Park Britannia. On a more sobering note, whilst driving home at the end of the day, we heard on the radio that part of this large park, surrounding the lookout, had been ravaged by fire. The damage was apparently not extensive but it was sort of scary to think that three hours earlier we had been walking through that exact area.
We stopped here at the Mesuah Lookout for a break. That in itself doesn't warrant mention. What does deserve mention is that like the protesters in Tahrir Square in Cairo, the group was for the first time showing signs of food anarchy. The decision when to stop and what to eat is always taken by consensus. Today each member of the Gang of Five ate his sandwiches at different times, drank tea at different times and even had a rogolach without the accompanying Chinese tea (Garry was straight off the plane from China and hence couldn't get the usual mint, lemon grass and whatever else he concocts into his herbal tea. We had to suffice with Chinese tea). Could the sandwich revolt be the first cracks in shvil unity? Or was it simply a case of the masses expressing their will to be free and eat when they want? This was actually in keeping with a more political slant to conversations today. Whilst we all come from the same basic school of political thought, the 2 extra walkers, who both have clear and distinct insights and world views, allowed Yoni, Garry and myself to broaden the conversation. After probably close to 1000 km of walking together and 40 years of friendship, it could be said that we know each other's opinions pretty well, though on the previous day's walk I think I shocked Garry a bit with some of my unorthodox and perhaps harsh views on treating terrorists. Whilst I respect Mark's opinions, I have to admit some doubt was sown in my mind as to whether I should be taking him seriously or not when at a picnic spot along the way he trotted up to a plaster sculpture of a sheep and started patting it as if it was his pet. I think his boss is working him too hard.
The forest started to thin out as we reached the Tzora Ruins and as we headed to the last archeological site for the day, Tel Gadid, we were walking entirely in the open. It wasn't too late in the morning and a mild breeze was blowing, so we didn't feel too battered by the heat. We were walking along a spine that is actually the southern extremity of the Jerusalem Hills. To the East we had the very northern part of the Shfella, which leads into the Negev. To the West, also the Shfella, that leads to Ashdod and the coast. Even for the summer, the views were very impressive. From Tel Gadid we dropped down the eastern side of the ridge to Yoni's car, parked in a field alongside road no.38 that leads to Beit Govrin.
It had been a very solitary walk. We hadn't seen anyone else at any point, other than some guy driving his van along the dirt track we were walking on, that leads from no-where to no-where. An l ultra-light plane, that looks like those toy planes I used to glue together as a kid, but in this case with 2 real people inside, occasionally buzzed overhead and one actually landed in a field 15 metres away from the walking track. In keeping with our attempts at using as many different forms of transport as possible along the shvil, we were tempted to ask the pilot for a lift, but he can only take one passenger and that's a degree of shvil disunity that we weren't willing to take.
By the time we got into Yoni's car my legs were starting to feel the 24 km we'd done in 18 hours, but since it had been a while since we'd been on the trail and will be even longer till we return to it, I'll allow my legs to complain a bit. Given the good company, the varied and interesting walking and the great feeling just being back on the shvil, no other part of me was complaining.
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