Israel National Trail

44th day (Mysterious Messages in the Desert)

2012-02-05T21:49:00.004+02:00

You have days like this. Short, nothing legs that link one interesting place to another. It would have been just as good if Captain Kirk had spoken into his wrist and said "beam me 13 km along the shvil, Scotty". But this would not do for the shvil elders, so we found ourselves looking north from the Akev campground, heading to the Nachal Mador campground, through the Zin valley, or as the Bible calls it, the Zin wilderness. This area is so out of the way that biblical scholars are not even certain that this particular valley is actually the Zin wilderness. Wikipedia gives it 2 lines and a photo. We gave it 4 hours, which is 4 hours more than anybody else gave it today. Once again, no shvillers, no hikers, no nothing. Are we that obnoxious that a nationwide warning goes out before we hit the trail? Anyway, I don't wish to be misunderstood here. An easy walk through the desert on a pleasant winter's day with 3 old school friends beats most other activities that I can think of, especially work.

The Zin valley is a very wide plain surrounded by high jutting hills. It's pretty enough, certainly not ugly, but after the past few sections that we'd done, which have all been spectacular, there was no "wow" factor. The only thing of note on today's walk was entirely man made. A couple of hours after setting off we came upon a spot where hundreds of little messages had been spelled out using small brown stones. Some were in English, some Hebrew and a few in an unrecognized language which I suspect as Portuguese. There was the usual "Dianne 4 Fredricco" and "Maccabi Haifa Champions". There was a message concerning Hanukkah 2010 and one angry stone setter had even left "Fuck Ivan" for posterity. There were stones that had been arranged into dates, but not all the dates were the same. I guess as others have passed by they've added their own little submission to the field of rocks. The net result is quite a strange, impressive and surprising site that may keep extra-terrestrials that land here guessing as to its meaning.

Other than that, a few ups and downs, a few nice rock formations and we arrived at the designated meeting point, where Sammy our Bedouin 4*4 taxi driver had agreed to meet us. We learnt from our previous leg that an agreed hour is at best a recommendation for Sammy the Beduoin, who has a different view of time to us living in the modern western world. I had spoken to him on the previous day and he had agreed to pick us up and seemed to understand where we wanted that to be, but when I had tried to confirm the pick-up, his cell phone had been turned off all day. Of course it is logical that he was somewhere in the desert, out of cell range, but I would have been calmer had I been able to speak to him during the day. As it turned out, we got in contact with him just as we arrived to the Nachal Mador camp ground and 15 minutes later he was there.

Yoni's car was parked about 15 minutes away from Midreshet Ben Gurion, where we were staying the night. He likes to get out and about with us, otherwise that little 4*4 knob on the dashboard would sit there, neglected and rusted from lack of use. But here, in the middle of the rough dirt tracks leading to the outback, was a 300 metre length of bitumen. It occurred to us that were driving along David Ben Gurion's personal airstrip. He lived at Sdeh Boker, which is adjacent to the Midrasha that has taken his name. It was obviously built so he could travel to Jerusalem when he was Prime Minister back in the 40's, 50's and 60's.Ben-Gurion's airstrip

Midreshet Ben-Gurion is a small community settlement of 900 people. If we wanted to eat there, the choice was Domino's Pizza or the dining room of the field school where we were staying. Neither seemed particularly appetizing, so Yerucham, where we stayed last time, which was 15 minutes away, seemed liked the best choice. The Abu Yerucham oriental restaurant there seemed a much better deal. The highlight of the evening, however, was the grand opening of the pub back at Midreshet Ben Gurion. When you know that your client base is going to be around 300 adults, you're not going to be spending a fortune in getting the place going. With furnishing and decor that may be best described as op-shop chic, and clientele that looked as if they'd just gotten out of a time capsule from Woodstock, It didn't look too promising. When Yoni and Garry asked for something as complicated as red wine and the boss had to send his son to the general store that was about to close to get a bottle, it was starting to look like a disaster. But as more people floated in the atmosphere warmed up and you certainly could mark it up as another shvil experience.
Back in the luxury of our youth hostel room, the vodka nightcap that has become a regularity sent us off to dreamland.

43rd day (The Truman-Shvil Show)

2012-01-15T22:27:00.001+02:00

that white dot is the blimp

It's the first week of January. Wecompleted 2 shvil days in December. This is the season that through shvillers supposedlystart in Eilat, walking the desert in winter so as to arrive up north in earlyspring. In contrary to this theory, we haven't seen any other shvillers at allthis season. Yoni is starting to suspect a conspiracy. As in the film "TheTruman Show" where Jim Carey lives in a false world that exists purely fortelevision, we're starting to suspect that there is no shvil yisrael at all. Thatit is all an elaborate ruse, set up by Israel Television (or World TelevisionInc.), where we walk around and everything that happens to us is watched bymillions of viewers around the world. This would explain some anomalies that wehave noticed along the way. Perhaps shvil signs are deliberately missing ormisleading so the viewers can be amused by our misfortune. Alternately there isa tight paint budget, so the set builder (Mr Shvil Painter to us) has to skimpand save. We have noticed lately bootprints on the ground, but no walkers. Isit possible that these footprints were planted by the show's producers? Thegiant blimp, which we thought had something to do with a mysterious and heavilyguarded, supposed nuclear facility near Dimona, that accompanied us from afarduring our last 2-day trip, was once again following us. Could it be that thetheory that our mugshots were posted throughout Israel's defense establishmentbulletin boards was a misguided guess and in truth our mugshots actually havestar rating, unbeknownst to us, in the real world? The blimp has nothing to dowith the facility near Dimona, but is actually the control room, where thedirector, having a bird's eye view, calls the shots to his crew. Shvillers thatwe have seen along the way are paid extras. We haven't seen any of late becauseof cut-backs in the show's budget, due to falling revenue and poorratings. Whatever. What is certain thatwe haven't seen shvillers for a long time and we've had these beautiful walksalmost exclusively to ourselves.

But let's start at the beginning.Which in this case was 4.00 a.m. Why? Because Koren, Garry's oldest, notrealizing that we were shvilling and thus sleeping in Yeruham, was worried thathe wasn't home and rang to check. Very sweet! That's Garry's story. Personally, I think itwas a pre-planned revenge for my snoring keeping him awake. In reality, it onlyshortened my sleep by 45 minutes and I think over the years I've robbed Garryof more hours sleep than those 45 minutes that Koren had taken from me. Rollcall was at 4.45. By 5.30 we were in the car. Whilst I snoozed in the back,Yoni and Garry reported on a very impressive red sunrise. I believed them,without feeling the need to pry my eyes open for the spectacle. We would haveenough spectacular spectacles in the coming hours.

As mentioned, these 2 days areprincipally for completing unfinished portions and negotiating one centrallandmark. Today we were starting where we finished a month ago, at the entranceto the Machtesh Hakatan, with the aim of climbing up Ma'aleh Eli, one of thesteepest ascents on the entire shvil yisrael. We started walking towards thegiant, 500 metre high crater wall 5 km to the east, knowing that we were goingto have to climb it in order to get to the pre-arranged pick-up point. I gulpedin trepidation. It looked almost impossible.

The walk to the crater wall provedeasy enough. The machtesh is lined with many small dry creek beds that onlyflow when flash floods rush through and out of the only opening, at theentrance where Garry's car was parked. If there was a flash flood today,Garry's mazda would have been history. For that matter, so would we have been,having to cross these creeks in order to progress towards the base of Ma'alehEli. The walking was unremarkable. A lot of the path was over loose sand andwith many rocks lying around and the spindly desert vegetation, we could justas easily have been at the beach. This beach was surrounded, however, by 500metre high walls in all directions. As always, we had started early and thecolors of the surrounding walls changed as the sun climbed higher in the sky. Inretrospect, given the beauty of the surroundings, perhaps"unremarkable" is a bit of a misnomer. Maybe I meant that the walkingprogressed without drama.

who's silhouette belongs to who?

Strangely, the closer we got to the base ofthe wall where we had to start the ascent, the less fearsome it appeared. Iwould have expected the opposite, but by the time we got to the base we eachcommented that it didn't look quite so scary. But that doesn't mean it waseasy. The initial ascent consisted of merely walking up a very, very steeppath. It was technically simple hiking, requiring no skill, balance or sense ofdirection, (things that we sometimes lack) just a strong heart muscle, pumpingaway to full capacity. On some of the steeper sections the shvil elders (or theTruman Shvil Show producers) have installed metal banisters to help us walk, orsimply to lean on and whilst we catch our breaths. The terrain became a bit rockierbut the incline didn't appreciably change. The going was difficult, but merely"difficult", no worse. If we needed reminding why we were putting ouraging and overweight bodies through this, all we need to do was to turn around andsee the crater floor beneath us and admire the view. There was no need tohurry, as we had given ourselves a generous buffer till the pre-arranged hourwhere we were to be picked up. This allowed us to find just the right perchwhere we could sit down and enjoy our breakfast. We have had a number of pitstops along the route to date that have been nothing short of stunning. It isboth impossible and unnecessary to say which is the most beautiful. I can say,though, that this one is certainly amongst them. From this lookout I observedan interesting topographical feature. Amachtesh is formed millions of years ago when the crater, full of water, isemptied quickly by the collapse of the wall at one specific point. That pointis the entrance to the machtesh where we started the day. From where we were sitting, we could see allthe dry creeks that we had crossed and many more, all snaking in the samedirection towards the entrance.


note the blimp spying over us

After a long and relaxing break wecontinued upwards, the path leading us along ledges, climbing boulders and wedgingour wide girths up narrow crevices. Eventually we reached the top. I've stoppedrecounting how breathtaking the views were. There's only so many ways and timesthat I can say it over the course of these last few walking days. This entireregion is simply amazing.

Over these past 3 years we haveunapologetically dodged, here and there, parts of the official shvil yisraelroute. Some of the sections that we missed were due to our lack of desire, ormaybe lack of belief, that we could conquer difficult climbs. If we haven't proven to ourselves that it isn't a problem over the past few legs, then today that fear was well and truly put torest. It could well be that once the desert gets too hot to walk through and the walking season is over for us, we maygo back and mop up some undone bits, as long as they're not along roads. Thenagain, we might not. At any rate, there are no second thoughts about our "no road walking" rule.

From the top of Ma'aleh Eli we had about 4 km ofeasy flat walking to cover to the road where we were to be picked up. Not longafter we'd started this last part of today's leg, we passed a large schoolgroup that were about to descend the wall that we had just climbed. These kidslooked as if they just come out of a hippy commune. They happily skipped alongthe marked path, looking unprepared and unaware of the steep descent thatawaited them ahead. I didn't envy their teachers and escorts that had toaccompany this group down the cliff. A bit further along we came across a merryband of revelers who had driven their 4WD vehicles to a pretty lookout over asaddle between two mountains. They seemed oblivious of the view and seemed moreinterested in finishing their bottles of cheap vodka and arak and dancing tothe beat of cheap Israeli mizrachi music. Drunk at 9.30 in the morning. Each totheir own, I guess. We hurried on, scared of being intoxicated by theevaporated alcohol that hovered in the air around them. Soon after, we got toour meeting point, almost an hour earlier than we had planned.

how do you use this dammed thing?

We had rung Danun, who was to meetus here, informing him that we would be arriving earlier than planned. "Noproblem, I'll be there waiting for you" he answered. When an Israelianswers a request with "no problem", you know you have a problem.When he's a desert Bedouin who has only the vaguest concept of time, you knowyou have even a bigger problem. An hour later he rolls up. When we politelymentioned to him that we had informed him that we would be getting to themeeting point earlier than planned and that he had confirmed that he understoodthat we wanted him to be there earlier as well, he looked at us blankly withthe same level of interest as if we had just told him that the Zambesi riverhad just broken its banks. No matter. Sami Danun might well be solution to thelogistical problem that is going to concern us for the next few hundred km ofwalking. From here south there are many legs where there is no access at all toregular vehicles and very little access to 4WD vehicles. Sami earns hislivelihood by being a 4*4 taxi service along inaccessible points in the desert,many of them along shvil yisrael. He impressed us with his knowledge of theshvil and his willingness and ability to get people in and out of places.Whilst his grip on the concept of time may be slightly worrying, his knowledgeof the area may well prove to be exactly what we are looking for. The drive tothe Machtesh entrance and Garry's car was mostly over proper paved road andonly partially over dirt track. No doubt that he feels more at home on the dirttracks. On the paved road he seemed to be unsure on what side of the road he wasmeant to be driving, using both sides as one. On the dirt track his hand seemedmuch surer. Must remember that for the future.

The road leading to the machteshentrance is a stock country back-road, except that it passes by a very heavilyguarded rubbish dump. Being in close proximity to a similarly guardedmysterious "civilian" nuclear facility, it makes me wonder what sortof garbage they're depositing here. Somehow I think it may not be the usednappies of Mrs Abuchatzerah from Dimona or last night's dinner eaten by theShitrit family of Yeruham. I just hope I don't return here in a few years timeto find two-headed lizards and five-legged rabbits roaming the desert.

It was nice to get home on thisFriday relatively early and without the bludgeoning shvil fatigue that wesometimes feel upon return. We may have driven a long way to do relatively fewshvil kilometres but fun is fun, no matter how you do it.

42nd day (The Big Fin)

2012-01-07T22:09:00.001+02:00

Walking the shvil, the usual aim for the day is to start at point A, arrive at the end at point B and thus get a bit closer to the final goal, Eilat. Occasionally, the aim of the day's walk is merely to tidy up some loose unfinished portions or to complete a specific task or landmark. This time we had 2 such days. Of course they were no less enjoyable than usual.
On this Thursday we had only 7 km to walk (that is, if we didn't get lost, which is always a possibility) and didn't expect any particular hardships. It was midday when we parked Mark's car opposite the gates of the Oron chemical plant and set off. The ancient and revered shvil rule of "no empty picnic table shall be left unused" came to play, especially since we hadn't eaten this morning. Gotta get your priorities right. Shoyn, we set off at 12.15.

Not for the first time we had some trouble finding the shvil markings, but for once, the book set us straight. Leaving the road, the path took us into the hills above to the east of the Machtesh Hagadol (the large machtesh). We climbed some rocks, walked up and down well marked paths and chatted happily, enjoying the warm winter sun. This continued uneventfully for about an hour. At one point, after easily negotiating a slightly steeper hill, the path rounded some high rocks and all conversation abruptly stopped. Unexpectedly we'd come to a cliff top overlooking the entire Machtesh Hagadol. Breathtaking views have been the norm these past few legs, but when you get to a point where your it comes on you suddenly, the affect is even more dramatic. And dramatic it was. This machtesh is as wide as the Machtesh Hakatan that we walked through last time but is almost twice as long. Machtesh Ramon, the third crater in the area, is larger still than the large machtesh, but let's not get bogged down by semantics or bragging rights. At any rate, we lingered here for a few minutes, spellbound by the vista below. Now it was time for today's main event, the Snapir Hagadol. I prefer the English translation, the Big Fin. It has a weird ring to it. We scrambled up a rock-face to the small landing at the top of the fin. The view from here was no less striking than that we had just climbed up from, the cliff overlooking the Machtesh Hagadol. Here we had an almost 360 degree panorama of the desert surrounds. A perfect place for our sandwiches. And for Garry's Herbal Tea and chocolate croissants. We don't starve on the shvil!!

From here there was only one direction...down. I guess the flipper is somewhat imaginatively named because it's a thin ledge that drops downs at about a 45 degree angle. I would have called it "the razor", instead. The descent wasn't too difficult but you do have to be careful not to fall over either side of the ledge into the abyss below, or to fall down on the rocks which are razor sharp. It was slow going, taking about 40 minutes to descend from the top and it demanded some concentration. After that, a little bit more walking, a long tunnel under the railways tracks where we had to stoop for some 100 metres to get to the other side and there we were, back at Garry's car. Barely 3 hours had passed since we'd left Mark's car, 5 kilometres south along this same road.
The car was parked at the place where we had been picked up in the dark by Eli from Dimona on the first day of our previous two day walk. Having finished in the dark, we missed Ein (spring) Yorkam, a desert oasis. Today was one of the rare occasions when we'd finished early, so we decided to look for the spring.
If you have visions of an oasis with palm trees and camel traders, think again. This oasis is a crevice below the desert floor, entered by descending a number of large steps hewn out of the natural rock. There were 2 ponds separated by a small sand flat and reeds growing in and around the water. Different shaped and coloured birds flitted around enjoying the oasis even more than us. We just lounged on the soft sand, appreciating having finished our walking early and easily. Had it been a bit warmer and the water a bit cleaner, I may have even been tempted to take a dip.

I don't know how long we stayed at Ein Yorkam, but eventually the time came to make our way to Avi's Place, our accommodation in Yerucham. It was a nice, small, clean place that was unexceptional in every way...a bit like Yerucham itself, really. Yerucham is not famous for very much other than in the past it was so badly managed that the Internal Ministry sacked the elected mayor and local council and appointed in its place Amram Mitzna, a retired army general, ex-mayor of Haifa and a former leader of the Labor Party. He agreed to do the job out of a simple and pure desire to do good. Mitzna spent five years attempting to get one of the most out-of-the-way little villages imaginable into order. The result is a tidy little township with lots of clubhouses, community centres, a big yeshiva and even an artificial lake. For us it was another slice of shvil yisrael experience.
You can't expect a working class desert town to offer too much in the way of gourmet dining. Whoever we asked pointed us towards the towns only "restaurant", the Amsalem family's grillhouse. The only exception was a lad stoking a barbecue outside the Yerucham Youth Centre, opposite Avi's Place. He recommended a brand new place run by a Druze chef that had come all the way from the north of the country. "Be warned, though," he whispered, "the place doesn't have a kashrut certificate yet". We forgave him his sin of pointing us towards a non-kosher restaurant in this decidedly traditional town. The unnamed place turned out to be a welcome return to the Abu Humus style of places that we'd eaten in during our first couple of years on the shvil. Abu Yerucham served good home made hummus, a plethora of fresh salads, hand cut chips and simple, tasty meats. Perfect. For the first time in almost a year, today we'd added more calories than subtracted.

The lack of real physical exertion may not have caused shvil fatigue, but the vodka that I brought form home coupled with nothing on TV and a dearth of tourist activities ensured that by 9.30 we were all snoring happily. Or at least I was.

41st day (Down Into the Machtesh Hakatan)

2011-12-14T19:55:00.000+02:00

One of the repercussions of finishing late the previous day was a reality check. We had originally planned to do a long 20 km through the Machtesh Hakatan, finishing the day with a climb out of the machtesh up Ma'aleh Eli which is a very long, very steep ascent. We probably could have done it, but it would have entailed us starting at 6 a.m. and finishing around 4 p.m. We saw from the previous day that planning to finish at about 4, with little daylight to spare, can be a bit risky, to say the least. We also didn't want to finish walking at 4 and therefore leave Dimona at 5, getting home at around 8.30 on a friday night, missing Shabbat dinner. So we decided to have an easier day, walking down into the machtesh and through half of it, getting picked up by Eli at the main entrance of the Machtesh Hakatan National Park, which is accessible by regular vehicle. I'm not going to describe here the exact geographical definition of a machtesh. It's sort of like a crater, but I'll let wikipedia do a fuller description. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Makhtesh

We had to cover 6 km from the day's starting point at Matzad Tamar before descending into the machtesh. Not long after setting off we encountered one of the weirdest, most inexplicable and totally inconsequential events we've seen on the shvil to date. A single, pink balloon floated by. It must have been half filled with helium since it stayed about 10 metres above the ground. There is no civilisation within 30 kilometres of where we were, so it is a total mystery how it got there and how it happened that it floated past us at exactly the time we walked through this part of the Judean Desert National Park. A scene from a Fellini movie. But what did it mean?
Given that we had shortened the day's walk to about 13 km, we decided to implement a form of Singapore style benevolent dictatorship where Yoni would be the Lee Kuan Yew, setting the pace for his admiring and loving shvil partners. In reality, I've said for a long time that we walk too quickly and today we had the time to take it nice and easy. We've also tweaked some food democracy rules, setting ourselves a specific time and length for breaks. Let's see how it lasts in the future. Today, at least, it worked well.

The six kilometres were basically uneventful. But not boring. Up hills, down wadi's, a desert plateau surrounded by high hills in the distance. There seems to have been some rain in the area this winter because we saw plants sprouting between the rocks, a bit like a desert pot-plant. If we weren't so busy trying to make it to Eilat it might be nice to return in the spring and see these plants flower. It's hard to say whether these Negev desert landscapes are beautiful by everyone's standards, or simply to us Galileans, the difference between the mountainous, forested north and the yellow canyons and dry river beds of the south make it appear more striking. I tend to think that anyone walking down into a wadi and climbing up steeply the other side in cool desert winter conditions would find it inspiring, no matter what he's used to at home.
But let's save the superlatives for the Machtesh Hakatan. I've used inspiring already, so how about breathtaking? Awe-invoking? Mind-boggling? You get the picture. Undoubtedly amongst the most dramatic views we've seen on the 600 km or so we've walked already. We were plodding along the path when we get to a sign that says in big bold red print "danger, no thoroughfare". We noticed some old animal bones, licked clean by the vultures, at the base of the sign. Great. We looked up from the sign and there in front of us, or more correctly, 500 metres below us, was a giant (the smallest machtesh in the Negev) crater. The walls were rippled and wavy and the floor on the bottom multicoloured from the different coloured sands. Once we awoke from the stupor, we followed the path ahead with our eyes. It snaked down onto the valley floor. Very steeply. We had time on our side and took the descent slow and easy. Taking the descent this way not only saved wear and tear on knees and ankles, but allowed us to fully appreciate the vista. As we descended, the angle changed and thus the view. From the bottom, looking up to the crater walls was no less striking.

Other than the views, the machtesh has another interesting feature; the coloured rocks and sand. We were walking in and around red, purple, yellow and ochre valleys. When we arrived at the agreed (dictated?) lunch time, we plonked ourselves down in the shadows of a red sand-box. The packed breakfast that the guest-house provided for us was another plus for the small town hotel that couldn't do enough to make us feel welcome. If anyone is touring in the area, you could do a lot worse than the Drachim Guest House in Dimona.

We finished the designated lunch break and continued on along the crater floor. The walking was easy and flat, with an occasional drop into a creek and a short steep climb out. I couldn't help but muse that I have so often seen in magazines or on television desert canyons with grand, striking views and wondered how much I would love to walk through such a place. And here we were, walking through a postcard that I've always dreamt of. "Wow", I thought to myself. For a variety of reasons and situations, there have been a number of times on the shvil that I have felt a certain privilege. This was one of them.

It's hard ( at least for us) to estimate how long it will take to finish any individual leg. More often than not, we finish later than we plan. Occasionally we finish earlier. This was one such time and we weren't sorry for it. We'd asked Eli to pick us up from the park entrance at 12.30 and by 11.15 were waiting already at the agreed point. You can forget cell phone range. Yoni and Garry meaningfully exploited the spare time by promptly finding a comfortable concrete barrier and fell asleep. I wasn't tired after the half day's walk and had shpilkers, so I trotted off along the road hoping to get cell phone range in order to tell Eli to come earlier.Getting to the park entrance took us off the shvil yisrael track by about 600 metres. The guide book recommends to walkers, even those that are continuing through the machtesh and up Ma'aleh Eli, to take this detour in order to see a special geological formation. The said detour enabled the enraptured viewer to see a large break in the rock-face. The split showed pylons of layered rock sprouting out of the ground and curving upwards and outwards. Very impressive, but if my day included a 20 km walk culminating in one of the steepest climbs on the entire 10000 km shvil, I'm not sure how much I would have appreciated the recommended detour. Still, on a day when I had an hour to kill it was more interesting than Snow White and Sleeping Beauty.

We hankered for our traditional double machiatto before heading home and knew that any of the 130 branches of Aroma coffee house would serve us the beverage in exactly the way we liked it. Even in Dimona. Yoni made an interesting sociological observation over coffee. On this early friday afternoon, there wasn't a single, pale-skinned Ashkenazi in sight. This was perhaps the most homogeneous Aroma in the country, where all the clientele where dark-skinned Jews of North African heritage, mixed with a few local Arabs. We were by far the whitest customers in the place. I am in no way being sarcastic, patronising or racist. Our shvil yisrael experience isn't only about craters and deserts. It's about seeing parts of Israel that we wouldn't otherwise see.
The three of us hobbled pathetically back to Garry's car, feeling all of our 50 plus years after two days of steep climbs and descents. The jacuzzi at the guest-house was a tempting finale, but we have families to get back to for shabbath.

40th day (Blue)

2011-12-13T18:00:00.000+02:00

Sometimes things just don't go to plan. We met up late, there were traffic jams along the way and the morning just didn't flow. If I believed in omens, then the morning's tardiness certainly would have been one. It was close to eleven by the time we arrived in Dimona. Ronny, the taxi driver who I'd spoken to on the previous day and with who I'd arranged prices, put me on to his brother Eli. Eli was busy, so arranged for the third brother, Menachem, to take us out to the starting point. Who would have thought that we'd stumbled on to Dimona's transport magnate family? Since I'm the one who made the arrangements and am also the most adept at small-talk of the three of us, I was assigned the front seat next to the driver. It seemed strange to me that Menachem, a pleasant religious man with a very strong Moroccan accent, would make comment that my Hebrew was heavily accented. We would discover later that in Dimona if you don't speak with a pronounced Moroccan or Indian accent, then you have an accent. At any rate, after living a good many years in Dimona, Menachem had no idea where it was that we wanted him to drop us off and like many before him, couldn't quite get a grip on why in heaven's name 4 middle aged Australians would want to wander through the desert in the first place. I think I detected a modicum of doubt when I claimed that we had actually walked this far from Israel's northern extreme.

It was almost midday when we hit the trail, believing that we could cover the 13 km in around 4 hours and get picked up around 4, with not quite an hour of sunlight up our sleeve. Sometimes things just don't go to plan. But more of that later.

Dimona is renowned not for its diverse ethnic population (which it doesn't have) nor for its diverse culinary traditions (which it also doesn't have) but for a certain top secret, heavily guarded military, whoops, sorry, civilian, facility just outside of town. We obviously didn't see it, but a very pretty, impressive zeppelin, similar to the Goodyear blimp that takes aerial shots over the super-bowl, certainly saw us. I imagine that our mugshots are now on the bulletin boards of all of Israel's security and intelligence apparatus.
The shvil itself was ok, you know, in a desert pretty way. We're getting used to this yellow rock and inner silence stuff. We passed 2 or 3 old Roman fort ruins, set up on a string of hilltops in the area in order to control this part of the Holy Land 2000 years ago. A Roman legionnaire from Liguria might have been sent to the Levant just like a reservist from Iowa might have been sent to Southern Iraq. Some things never change. Matsad (fort) Tamar, where we started our previous trek, is part of this ancient defensive line, as was Matsad Tzapir, the best preserved of the ruined fortresses, which commanded views of the entire area below. It also commanded us to stop and eat our lunch here. It was undoubtedly one of the prettiest lunch stops we've had so far en-route.

Upon resuming, we followed the red marked path as far as a major shvil intersection, where a blue path came up from the south and continued west, a black path headed north and the red path couldn't decide what to do so it just stayed put.

The guide book instructed us to continue with the blue. The clearly marked path continued down and south. The weather was perfect, the views impressive and of course the conversation flowed. I made a comment to Yoni that I was glad that we were walking down the whole time, because it would have been a lot less pleasant doing it the opposite direction. At one point was came around a bend to the site of an enormous chasm below us, the Dead Sea in front and the Mountains of Moab in Jordan behind. For that split second all conversation ceased, such was the sudden and awe inspiring beauty. On numerous occasions over the next day and a half we would encounter views that took our breath away. We would also climb some mountains that would also take our breath away, but that's a different story. The sight of Jordan to our south east brought up a worrying thought. We were meant to be heading in a roughly westerly direction, not decidedly south east. Could it be that we took the blue path in the opposite direction and have now walked an hour out of our way? Upon consulting the map and looking at the road beneath us for reference, Yoni and Garry, the map mavens, decreed that indeed we had wasted a full hour in the wrong direction. Fuck. We weren't meant to have seen that awesome sight of the chasm, Dead Sea and Mountains of Moab. We were meant to be seeing other awesome sights.

Now came the time for some adult decision making. We had the choice of continuing down to the road below, call one of the 3 taxi driving brothers and finish at the sensible time of about 3 o'clock. The alternative was to back track an hour, find the proper blue path and hope to get out as early as possible, knowing full well that there was little chance that we'd be finishing in daylight. Ah, the joys of behaving like a little boy and taking the irresponsible but more enjoyable path. How many of us have ever taken a knowingly "wrong" decision? So there we were, making an about face, walking up a hill that I'd so smugly remarked that I wouldn't want to climb, following the wrong blue marking and traipsing back almost to the place where we had lunch. Mark had gotten us on to the subject of previous girlfriends and perhaps the blue conversation had distracted us from looking for the correct blue markings. Perhaps we were simply morons who are constantly getting lost. Whatever. We arrived back at the major shvil intersection, took the correct turn and saw the first white, blue and orange shvil sign that we'd seen for almost 2 hours.

From this point on, Mark was determined not to allow us to walk any more than 50 metres without finding a shvil yisrael marker and not just a blue marker. Every time he found such a marker, he would yell "shvil sign" at full volume, as if heralding the presence of the king. So much for desert peace and quiet.

Before starting today's walk we'd agreed with Yoni that we needed to change our walking philosophy, taking longer breaks and walking at a more leisurely pace. Philosophy is good only when conditions allow it to be relevant. We were racing against time to finish the day before sunset, so leisurely walking was not an option. The only breaks we had were 30 second stops to take 4 gulps of water before continuing on the cross desert run. And whilst it was clear that the lack of time dictated the pace at which we were walking, it was a pity, because the route was really quite beautiful. We passed more desert canyons, crossed wadis, saw giant boulders strewn around as if they were child's marbles and almost fell into a deep crevice. And this was the "boring" part of the walk. After following the correct blue markings that had the shvill markings painted next to them for about 3 km we approached Ma'ale (ascent) Yemin. The steep descent into Nachal Yemin passed by a high, dry waterfall shaped like an amphitheatre. The rocks had slits and grooves etched into them, the result of millions of years of seasonal, violent flash floods. More boulders, weighing many tons, were tossed here and there. We'd dropped from Matzad Tzapir, at almost 500 metres above sea level, down to the floor of Nachal Hatira which is not much higher than sea level.


that's the moon, not the sun

The path criss-crossed the nachal a number of times until it arrived to a point where Mr. shvil-painter decided that he'd had enough. At this point he decided that he'd had enough of Nachal Hatira and he wanted out. Straight out. Up-and-over out. With light fading fast, we were left with the choice of sitting down and crying or walking straight up a near vertical path. This was the ascent known as Ma'aleh HaPalmach. By the time we reached the top of the path, we were left with 2 light sources. The flashlight that I'd brought and the light of the full moon. The sun was a faded memory. If I'd been there with Angelina Jolie, I might have called it the most romantic moment of my life. Since I was there with Yoni, Garry and Mark, lets just say that the beauty of the moment didn't escape my tired attention. The spell was quickly broken when we realised that we may have finished walking up the incline, but that doesn't mean that we'd finished climbing. Not by a long shot. Before us stood an old metal ladder, cemented into the ground and attached to the cliff face. We were meant to climb this in order to get to the next stage of the trial.
When Mark is not accompanying us through the desert he holds a position that demands him to be always available to give authoritative answers to calls from certain people, often journalists, on certain subjects. He got one such call when climbing the ladder. It didn't interest the foreign editor of the Tokyo Times that he was answering his call stuck half way up a ladder on a cliff in the middle of the Negev Desert. The conversation went something like this:
Editor: haro, is dis mister Cohen?
Mark: Yes it is. who is this please?
Editor: Hayuki Kawasaka, the foreign editor of the Tokyo Times. I would rike your opinion on the ratest dewelopments in your sphere of work.
Mark: So nice to talk to you again Mr Kawasaka san. I'm actually taking a days holiday today. Do you think that you could possibly talk to my assistant Yossi?
Editor: No. I ront to give my readers an authoritative official statement.
Eventually mark convinced Mr Kawasaki that Yossi could be just as reliable as him. Mark continued up the ladder, safe in the knowledge that Yossi would deal with Mr Kawasaki and we would eventually stop laughing.

At the top of the ladder, hand rungs had been driven into the wall. Once we passed the ladder test, it was time to prove our dexterity and eye-hand co-ordination by swinging our legs onto the rungs and climb a little higher. Next was the balance test. The "path" narrowed to 10 centimetres wide and ran along the top of the ridge. Luckily there was a metal cable running along the wall to our side to hang onto. On the other side was a precipice. This series of acrobatic trials, to be bested by the light of the full moon, continued on until eventually we reached the top of the cliff and safe, straight, stable ground was underfoot. It was only then that we could appreciate the beauty of the scenery below, even, or especially, in this light. It was at once eerie, spectacular and special. To be honest, I'm perfectly aware that climbing cliffs at night is a tad, how should I put it?... irresponsible?... dangerous? But it was an experience that I will probably only have once in my life and it was exhilarating. Once we got into cell phone range I rang Eli, our contact brother with the transport magnates, and asked him to pick us up at Ein Yorkam.


night with the full moon

Dimona may not be one of the great cities of the world, but we were happy to get there after our big day out. The Drachim guest house proved to be a good place to settle for the night, but before testing the rooms we had some culinary issues to work out. It appears that for a city of 40,000 people, 4 restaurants is suffice. One is Kosher dairy (no way), one is an Aroma coffee shop, the McDonalds of Israeli coffee shop chains, another is "Capiot", the more up-market meat restaurant and the fourth is "Shipudai Ron" (Ron's meat-house), where you get authentic, simple, local fare. Gourmet it wasn't, but it was certainly fresh and clean. Washed down with a couple of beers, it was just right. Mark couldn't stay the night and said his farewells. We went back to the guest house where a hot, bubbling Jacuzzi was waiting for us. Now I wouldn't say that we are spoilt. Far from it. We've stayed in a couple of hovels so far, though most places have been ok. But the jacuzzi is a first. And its going to be really hard to go back to anything less. When you've walked 16 hard kilometres, 3 of them needlessly, drop 450 metres into a valley and then climb 350 metres up a cliff, your 52 year old muscles start to object. And as for the 52 year old feet...You can't imagine how good that jacuzzi felt. The ice cold Grey Goose Vodka that we were sipping just added to the ambience. For the second time today, I dreamt of Angelina Jolie and got Garry and Yoni.
If little had gone to plan today, then why should it end to plan? The Israel Electric Company decided that the jacuzzi was using too much power and all of Dimona had to pay the price of a power blackout. So there we were, 3 grown men, sitting in a hot bath in the dark, sipping vodka. By the time we went to bed we were left to consider the fact that on the shvil, even if things don't go as planned, you can still have a great day.

39th day (Creek Beds)

2011-11-05T09:11:00.001+02:00

4.45 muster. 5.30 Eli's taxi. 6.00 Arad airstrip. Today's walk started with clockwork efficiency. Just as well, since the shvil painter's inefficiency caused us to waste any time that we may have gained by getting out of bed at such an ungodly hour. But more of that soon enough.


Eli's white taxi

The Arad airstrip is the sort of place that Stephen King or Isaac Asimov may write about in their books. A few deserted hangars, a 200 metre strip of dirt track, sand, rocks, mottled dawn light and a cold desert wind. The undead or the aliens, depending on your preferred author, were about to jump out at us at any moment. In reality, the only other living creatures that we encountered on the first kilometre or so were mangy dogs that sniffed around indifferently from a distance.

It was nice walking, "nice" being that bland non offensive term when you have nothing else to say. The early morning light and sun rising from the east made the walking a bit more interesting. After half an hour of this "nice" walking we passed some markings painted on a rock that indicating that a red marked path branched to the right and the black marked path continued straight. After a further 20 metres, all the markings disappeared. Mr Shvil Marker once again was on strike, leaving us to the mercy of the Bedouins and the desert. Another fork 100 metres further on led us no-where in both directions and at this point it was safe to say that we didn't have a clue. My sense of direction said that we were looking in the wrong place but my co-hikers have learnt over the years to do the exact opposite of my intuition. We walked backwards and forwards, took a path that led us down to a Bedouin camp, walked back, walked in circles, scratched our bums in confusion and didn't know what to do. We read and re-read the pertinent paragraph in the book and that was about as useful as a skipping rope is to an elephant. I branched off once again to check the area where I though the path should be, not expecting any results and lo and behold, there were the white, blue and orange markings that we were looking for. I tried not to be smug, but being right once in three years gave me a certain pathetic satisfaction. Having said that, I still agree that in all future deliberations as to which direction we should take, the correct route will be the one that is opposite to the one I indicate. No argument. A long steep valley lay out in front of us was, the sort that any kid would find too tempting to resist testing the echo. A loud coo-we was bellowed into the valley. Once the impressive echo had died down, a local unseen Bedouin lad tried his hand at the aboriginal call in reply.

Having wasted 45 minutes we didn't want to spend too long whooping into the distance and started our descent down the steep path into Nachal Canfan. Upon entering the nachal we were met with a pungent smell above us. Looking up we saw a herd of goats and their Bedouin goat-herds. Standing down-wind from the herd was not one of the most pleasant sensory experiences we've had on the shvil. Soon enough we escaped the goats and were treated to a far more pleasant fragrance, that of wild za'atar (hyssop). I have it growing wild in my garden, but up in the cooler and wetter Galil, the leaves are bigger and the smell and taste less sharp. In this desert canyon, the leaves are much smaller in order to reduce evaporation and the smell far more concentrated. It was quite intoxicating. At one point, when we stopped to eat our sandwiches, we sat down on a ledge overlooking the canyon below, picked a few leaves of the wild za'atar and put them into the sandwiches. Gourmet chefs search the world for new taste sensations such as this. Mark down another "it doesn't get any better than this" moment.
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We spent a good few hours walking through Nachal Canfan, which changed its topography as we progressed. Sometimes it was deep with high walls, other times shallower and broader. Sometimes there were clear watermarks on the rock walls, either soft sandstone having been washed out by rushing flash-floods or harder, more resilient rock that had been eroded smooth over time. It wasn't "nice", it was beautiful and different to anywhere we've walked thus far. Amazing how such a small country can provide such a wide variety of views.

I have read accounts of people who have walked through the desert describing the peace and quiet in almost mystical terms. Not having walked through these landscapes since I was about 18, I never quite appreciated those descriptions. In the greener, more forested north, it is peaceful as well, but not to the same degree. There are more people, more animals, more sounds in the north. Here in the desert the quiet is almost hypnotic. Desert silence, desert peace. We walked for large stretches, happy not to communicate.

The desert silence doesn't mean that the route was totally devoid of life. Unlike the day before, we saw birds overhead and more than once heard them calling from inside caves or bushes. Whilst resting we saw a herd of camels wander over the hill opposite us. The most common animal however was far smaller than camels and birds. Flies, and they were everywhere. The area looked spotlessly clean and natural, but I fear that the flies that abounded indicated carrion or other organic pollution. For those that don't know the term, look up "The Aussie Salute" on google, and think of us.
Once we reached the bottom of the descent the nachal evened out, but the walking was quite difficult. Traversing over varyingly shaped and sized rocks in a dry creek bed is quite uncomfortable and as time wears on, quite tiring. It would be true that we didn't talk too much amongst ourselves, not just because we were having an hypnotic, holy Buddhist, spiritual experience, but because we had to concentrate so hard where to put our feet so as not to fall or twist an ankle or knee. We actually spent a lot of the time walking above the gulley, where the ground was firmer and intact and therefore more comfortable to walk in, rather than the rocks and pebbles below. Occasionally the creek bed would form a canyon, narrow with walls 10 metres high. If this appeared more interesting, I would descend into the canyon, walk though it for a while and leave Yoni and Garry to continue above

Gradually the valley broadened into a wide moonscape,
dotted here and there by large lone acacia trees. These trees look so inviting, supplying the only shade in the wide open expanses. We obviously weren't the first to discover the shade of the acacia tree and judging by the stench of the camel dung and the accompanying fly invasion, this was a permanent pit-stop on the trans-negev caravan route. Bedouin camel herders may not notice the smell and the flies, but we certainly did and were very upset that we couldn't enjoy this little bit of shade before continuing on in the sun. The lesson learnt here is that not every lone tree in the desert is a haven.

using hiking poles as antennas in order to find cell range

Our last break had us sipping the usual herbal tea when an aberration appeared before us. A lone man with what appeared to be his entire personal belongings on his back appearred on the horizon. As he neared we invited him to share our tea with us. Turns out that he is a lone shviller that is also walking Israel in stages. He sighed that his wife would only let him out every now and again, so he had to make the most of his shvil times. We were embarrassed to hear that he was covering in 2 days what we aim to cover in 4 shvil days. Very humbling indeed.
Nachal Canfan turned into the wide Nachal Kina which led to the wider Nachal Dimona. It was refreshing not having seen jeeps so far but unfortunately it was almost inevitable finding them in the wide, rough Nachal Dimona. These jeeps were serious off-roaders, with heavy duty shocks, raised bodies, big, thick tread tyres and exhaust pipes up the side rather than under the bottom of the vehicles. We'd been on the trail now for close to six hours, and after an hour of walking through these wide valleys, were happy to see our version of a desert vehicle, Eli's white taxi, pull up exactly where we'd asked him to. Midday beer and chips at the Muza was the perfect end to our 2 day adventure.

38th day (Arad)

2011-10-27T21:28:00.002+02:00

At 12.30 on the 14th July we arrived to Yoni's car, parked not far from Beit Govrin and said goodbye to the shvil for a summer break. Perhaps it wasn't a teary farewell, but after 3 months of no shvil, we were glad to get back to the shvil and equally glad that it had cooled enough to allow us to venture out into the Negev without being cooked.We were happy too, that Mark, who joined us for that leg in July, decided that he'd make it 2 in a row.
Even before we laid foot on the white-blue-orange path, we knew that this upcoming season was going to be the hardest and the most logistically demanding to date. We've dealt with hard and will deal with whatever difficulty the shvil will throw at us. Logistics will prove to be the difference between a successful or unsuccessful (perhaps successful = enjoyable) day's walking. For starters, we didn't want to muck around, wasting time leaving a car at one end, then ferrying back to the start. In addition, here in Negev Bedouin-land, there's no guarantee that the car you leave at the end will be there when you get there. Eli's Skoda taxi was the perfect solution. Cheaper and more efficient than replacing a stolen car, he met us in Arad at the appointed place and time and dropped us off at a point called Metsad Tamar, in the middle of no-where, with an instruction to meet us at another point in the middle of no-where 4 hours later.

Whilst as fascinating visiting a ruined Roman stronghold in the middle of the southern Judean desert may be, it was more important to us to avoid walking along 2 km of road after Matsad Tamar and ensuring that we arrived at the end point for Eli to pick us up before sundown. I would like to point out here that all our logistical planning almost came unstuck at the very beginning. While we were waiting 2 minutes in Arad for Eli to arrive, a mini-bus driver almost stole us from under Eli's nose. Luckily Eli somehow got wind that someone else was trying to steal his fare and rung me, warning me not to board anybody else's vehicle. I guess there are sheisters everywhere, even in sleepy little desert towns.
When we did get out of Eli's taxi 2 km after Matsad Tamar, we had the wide barren expanses of Bika'at Tzva'im waiting for us to cross. Translated into English, Bika'at Tzva'im means Deer Valley. Now there's a misnomer if ever there was one. Between Bedouin hunters and the desert conditions, a deer wouldn't last here more than 20 minutes. As for valley, if that includes a flat area 12 km in length (which we were about to walk through) and as wide as the eye and horizon allow, then let it be called a valley. But forget green pastures, babbling brooks and cotton tailed bambis out of Walt Disney's imagination. We came for and got desert. No animals of any sort, no trees and barely any other vegetation, just hard yellow earth. And it was beautiful. I'm not sure if I'm going to be saying that in 400 km time when we crawl into Eilat, but for now it was grand.

Of course there were some signs of certain animal activity, but purely of homo sapien in nature, including an 18 km long conveyor belt that brings potash up from the dead sea to be processed at a nearby production plant that we had to pass under.

The main human activity, however, involved all too common metal boxes that had all 4 wheels turned by an internal combustion engine designed by a Saudi prince.This being a wide flat plateau with barely a track on it, it was the perfect testing ground for 4*4 vehicles that came down from the suburbs in the centre of the country and wanted to get into off-road territory without the need for any true technical cross-country skill. There were so many people that wanted to get off the beaten track that it became very much on the beaten track. We were treated to a variety of greetings that ranged from pity to puzzlement and even occasionally to respect. Every so often we had to clear the path for a convoy of vehicles. And this is how it was for 12 km. Occasionally we'd pass by a lip that overlooked a crater below or we'd admire the valley walls, shaped by wind and water over thousands of years. Now and again we had a short sharp hill to climb and then drop down the other side, but it was nothing that we hadn't dealt with 100s of times to date. It may not have been breathtaking, but this was all new territory for us and in perfect mid 20's walking weather, no-one complained. A desert stroll to loosen us up for the next day.

A large multi-layered monolith loomed on the horizon towards the end of Bika'at Tzva'im. Standing un-eroded on the desert landscape, it looked like a miniature version of Metzada, which was about 20 km away. It even had a snake path leading up one side of it, which prompted us to theorise that this place may be of significant historical value. Perhaps the zealots of 2000 years ago used this hill to do a practice run before digging in on the more famous mountain on the shores of the Dead Sea. We will put this theory to the antiquities department and ask for a written report after thorough investigation. Who knows?

Our path led us beneath this mini-Metzada and the shade that it afforded convinced us to take our tea break here. Upon sitting down in the shadow of Metzada's little brother we noticed sea shells scattered on the ground. Was this evidence of Zealot currency or that millions of years ago this entire area was under water? More questions for the antiquities department to answer in their report.

Mark had been waiting for tea time all day. It had nothing to do with Garry's famous herb tea concoction but had everything to do with a special gift that his son Yuval bought him on a recent trip to Taiwan. Here we were, in the southern Judean Desert, about to feast on "Special Pineapple Biscuits", manufactured and packed on the far away island of Formosa. Mark's eyes were ablaze with pride. I took an eager bite, anticipating a taste sensation never yet experienced. I guess that's one way of describing it. The "Special Pineapple Biscuits" were dry lumps of dough that had the consistency and taste of the sand that we were sitting on filled with yellow jello. Always the diplomat, I mumbled something about not being hungry, returning the remaining 3/4 of the biscuit back into its wrapping whilst hoping that Mark wouldn't notice that I'd spat out what was in my mouth. Yoni was far less diplomatic, spitting out the dry pastry and yellow coloured "fruit" filling in a way that left no doubts about his opinion. Mark was admirable in his loyalty to his son and ate an entire biscuit, ignoring our warnings that there was no hospital in Arad to pump his stomach and no amount of tea or water would moisten the dry biscuit. A father's love knows no bounds.

In keeping with our steadfast rule of no road walking, upon leaving the taxi at Metsad Tamar we'd asked Eli to find his way on to this side road and pick us up. We'd completed an easy 13 km and were enjoying the weather, views and the company such that we would have happily broken the rule just this once and continue along this back-road. Eli, however, was such a stickler to our wishes that not long after we continued walking after the completion of the tea and "Special Pineapple Biscuit" break, he drove up in his white Skoda.
Today our shvil experience didn't finish when we left the track. Tonight Arad was also going to supply us with some great shvil memories.

Finding suitable accommodation over the internet can have its pitfalls at the best of times. When you're interested in spending little or no money for a place who's sole function is to rest your head between walks and enable you to prepare sandwiches for the coming day, then there's all the more chance of something going wrong. So far we've stayed in some good places, some just ok places and at Har Amassah, which is in a league of its own when it comes to pits. Sometimes a place is so cheap that you're sure there's going to be a hidden catch and with this in mind I booked with some trepidation a night at Iru'ach Mikka. And sometimes (rarely) you scratch your head and wonder how such a good place can be that cheap. It was spotlessly clean, had a television in the lounge and we even got a bedroom each, thus sparing Yoni and Garry having to put up with my snoring. If we got transport right with Eli's taxi, then we got accommodation right with Mikka's flat. I don't know if it was good planning or dumb luck, but had Eli turned out to be Travis Bickle and Mikka's apartment had turned out to be the Best Little Whorehouse in Arad, then things may have been decidedly less merry.
Usually we're quite happy to be away from the news when we're shvilling but in this case the television was extremely useful in getting the run-down concerning Gaddafi's demise. It was quite surreal, sitting in an apartment in Arad, sipping red wine and watching looped grotesque videos of a lynched Mu'amar Gaddafi. After watching the same i-phone videos ten times and hearing the BBC trying to say the same thing in 20 different ways, we decide that it was time to breath in some Arad air.
Arad is a strange and in turn fascinating little desert town. It is an uncomfortable mix of Israelis, ultra religious Chasidai Gur, pale skinned Russians who look as if they'd be more at home in Siberia and Sudanese guest workers who clean the nearby Dead Sea hotels. A pre dinner walk around town got us into the Arad frame of mind.

In general, we try not to return to places that we have already been to so that we can always experience something new. The Muza pub is an exception to the rule. If it was in Tel Aviv it would be a great place, but to find it here in Arad only makes it all the better. And if our choice was between a 330 gram hamburger washed down with a couple of interesting beers, or the local Shewarma stall, coming back to the Muza was a no-brainer. If you're ever in Arad and take up my recommendation to visit the place, look for my red, white and black St.Kilda Saints aussie rules footy scarf that I presented to the owner, amongst the hundreds of other scarves of less significant teams, such as Barcelona, Manchester United, Boston Celtics and N.Y. Yankees that line the walls and ceiling.

The night was still young when we left the pub so we decided that since it was Simchat Torah, we'd get some religion and find out where the dancing with the Torah was taking place. It wasn't hard to find. Arad is not that big and all we had to do was follow the sounds of "moshiach, moshiach, moshiach" blasting out of a p.a. system. The scene was somewhat bizarre; all sorts of religious Jews, differing from each other by head dress, clothing and religiosity. One at a time, each synagogue in Arad was called to the stage to present and bless their Torah. A sort of Torah beauty pageant. "Give a warm blessing to the Ovrom Aveinu Gur Kollel and Synagogue" the m.c. would declare. The elderly rebbe would bless the torah and the gathered crowd below, to be replaced by Rabbi Amsalem of the Sons of Morocco Synagogue immediately after. And so it continued. Below the stage the believers were moving in ecstatic rhythm to the sounds of God's music blasting from the p.a. At the centre of the throng were a number of Torah scrolls, held up high for all to revere. Idol worship is forbidden in Judaism, right? There were also non-dancing believers merely soaking up the atmosphere. Intermingled amongst these less active believers were bemused Russians, not renowned for public expressions of emotion at the best of times, not knowing what to make of grown adults dancing in fervent rhapsody around a hand written rolled up parchment. The Sudanese guest workers skirted around the outside, perhaps looking for something to steal, perhaps deliberating whether Darfur wasn't a saner option. And then there were the 3 white Australians, soaking up a side of Israel not seen in their twenty-something years in the country. And there is the essence of Shvil Yisrael. Not just the beautiful scenery, the physical challenge and the 3 of us taking sanity breaks from home and family. It's about experiencing slices of this tiny but varied country that we can't do from our homes in the Galil.

Back at Mikka's apartment, after pre-dinner red wine and beer in the pub, it seemed only logical to down a nightcap of good vodka shots whilst re-watching the loops of Gaddafi's demise.
We'd started the day quietly at home with our families. By the time we went to bed we'd had a week's worth of adventures.

37th day (Trees)

2011-07-29T08:55:00.002+03:00

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.

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

ng to see too many trees other than an occasional desert oasis for the next 400 km or so.

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.

36th day (Into The Dusk)

2011-07-21T21:26:00.000+03:00

After the success of our previous 2-day shvil expedition we decided that we would repeat the same format in July. For those that couldn't be bothered reading the previous blog or have forgotten it since it was so long ago, we start walking in the late afternoon, about 4 p.m., when the temperature has dropped and the day is long. We did a short 10 km or so, keeping ourselves fresh for the longer, hotter leg the following day, which we started as early as possible so as to finish before the worst of the day's heat set in. The unknown in the equation is what has more of an affect; the mid July summer rather than early may spring heat, or the cooler Jerusalem hills rather than the hot Negev desert? Certainly the 38 degrees that the thermometer in Yoni's car showed had us worried that perhaps walking anywhere in Israel in July is folly.

When we disembarked from Garry's car at the starting point it felt like the temperature had dropped a bit and that we wouldn't get baked in the heat. At any rate, we had more pressing matters at hand than worrying about something we couldn't influence. Having left both guide books in Yoni's car which was parked at the end, we had to do these 10 kilometres without a safety net which so often proves to be not much help anyway. We promptly saw a clearly painted shvil sign on a rock leading up a path and thought nothing of the books we didn't have. The next marking had been painted over with grey paint, Mr. Shvil Painter's version of Tipp-Ex (Wite-Out for those on the other side of the Atlantic). We took this to be a bad omen. When the path led us to a dead end it became obvious that this was Mr. Shvil Painter's sick idea of a practical joke and we weren't laughing. Backtracking is one of our more common methods of shvilling but this just didn't feel right. We passed by the Shlomo Tussia-Cohen Memorial picnic ground that was in such a terrible state of neglect that we conjectured that Mr. Shvil Painter simply didn't want to bring unwitting shvillers to the vicinity. After searching in vain for the shvil path, we returned to Garry's car and drove up and down road 3866 hoping to find a shvil marking. Eventually, after wasting an hour, we found a real shvil sign and set of off at 5 p.m. I haven't mentioned that we had a guest shviller with us today. Yvonne, an old school friend of ours, had joined us on a previous walk and thought that joining us again was a good idea. After the shenanigans of forgotten books, unfound shvil markings and wandering around in circles in 35 degree heat, it would be safe to say that she regretted giving us the second chance.
The guide book that I read before starting (It wasn't with us, remember?) had us pass the tomb of a long dead Muslim sheikh. We couldn't find it, but didn't waste even a nanosecond trying to locate it. The only thing that we were looking for was shvil markings.
From the outset there were motifs that would repeat themselves over the next 2 days of walking. We were still in the area that may be defined as the Jerusalem Hills, which is part of the Judean Mountains. The "Jerusalem" part ensured lots of ruins, tels and assorted signs of 3,000 years of civilization. The "Hills" part meant starting the walk at 650 metres above sea level, affording us beautiful views and shady (very important in the summer!) forests.

Having missed the sheik's tomb, we strode past the Dorban ruins without a second glance. Both books give these ruins an aura akin to Massada. The 4 walkers saw a few shoddy broken walls, some fruit trees and some modern graffiti in the form of white, blue and orange stripes. I guess I shouldn't expect too much from a site that can trace its roots way back to king Hezekiah, who ruled over the Kingdom of Judah between 715 and 686 BCE during the first temple period. The views, however, didn't escape our attention. We walked above and then into a valley surrounded by trees and small settlements. Given that summer in Israel is usually dominated by greys and browns, this was a pleasant surprise.

Another pleasant surprise was the palm grove in the middle of no-where. The palm trees weren't date palms which are common all over Israel. These palms were planted close together in rigid rows and were tall, straight and had black and brown trunks. Obviously deliberately planted, we couldn't work out to what purpose they were here. Certainly not to sit under on a late summer afternoon, sipping cold ice tea and snacking on chocolate croissants, but for us that was a good enough reason for their existence.

After the short break we continued on, through a cactus maze, and then past scattered abandoned buildings that didn't look 2,500 years old, but far more modern, say pre 1948 Arab in origin. As we passed by a spent wheat field we spotted two women, shepherding four children in some afternoon play time. We arrived to the Mattah spring just as they did. They were from the nearby moshav of Mattah and seemed surprised to see 4 red-faced middle-aged Australians trot past their backyard. I can't imagine why. I would think that it's an everyday occurrence.

Next a short,sharp climb led us to the Hanut ruins. If the Dorban ruins didn't really leave much of an impression, the Hanut ruins did. They were larger and more impressive and included a 6th century Byzantine church that apparently has an original, intact mosaic floor, but we were in too much of a hurry in the failing light to investigate. The Byzantines held that this was the burial spot of Goliath, which has some logic since we would start our walk the following day at Tel Azikah, where the battle between David and Goliath took place. We did notice, however, the large stone steps hewn out of the rocks leading to and away from the site. This was part of the ancient Caesar's Way, from the port of Ashkelon to Jerusalem. The emperor Hadrian marched his army along this route to Jerusalem in 133 AD in order to put down the Bar Kochba rebellion. You just can't escape the sense of history in this area.

The Mattah Forest is a large natural forest in the hills on the outskirts of Jerusalem. The heat of the day had dissipated, the sun was dropping so the light was very soft and I can think of few better ways to spend a July afternoon than walking through this delightful forest. We spent about an hour walking though the forest, wondering how far we were from Yoni's car and whether we'd get there in poor day light or strong moonlight. When, at 8.15, we turned a corner and quite literally bumped into it, dusk was giving way to night. We were thankful that we didn't have to check out what it would be like walking in the light of a full moon.

To date, the weakest link in the overnight shvil chain has been the accommodation. The kibbutz B+B without the B for Breakfast at Galon was fine, but the hovels at Lahav and Har Amasah left much to be desired so the kibbutz Bedouin tent at Netiv Halamed Hai was a major improvement. 65 shekels bought us a beach mat and a mattress inside a large tarpaulin, c'est tu. The showers were spotless with ample hot water, we could store food in the fridge in the kitchenette and the tent was large enough so my three companions could distance themselves from me, thus reducing the affects of my snoring. What more could you want? It really was a lot of fun, in a little-kid-going-camping way.

Yoni had made previous plans for the evening, so he showered quickly and quick smart ditched his walking partners for better company . We were assigned the role of buying food for the next day at the local Bet Shemesh supermarket. Talk about culture shock! Over recent years Bet Shemesh has seen a large influx of ultra-orthodox Hassidic Jews, it being cheap and close to holy Jerusalem. They live in an uneasy co-existance with the Moroccans who have been there since Bet Shemesh's inception and the Russians who came during the immigration wave of the '90s. Supermarkets are the melting pots of local culture and no-where more so than here in the Bet Shemesh Supersol. Black-hatted Haredim and their long suffering wives and 10 children rubbed elbows with traditional, dark skinned Moroccan Jews, pale, gold-toothed Russians and an assortment of under-dressed and over-pierced teenagers. If only I'd had a movie camera…but that's an all together different project.

It was getting late and we hadn't eaten, so rather than look for the culinary pearl of Bet Shemesh (Yoskel's Gefilte Fishery, perhaps) we decided that Aroma coffee bars are always reliable. They're sort of the McDonalds of Israeli coffee bars.
By 10.30 we were fed, tired and generally happy campers. By 10.35 we were asleep…or at least I was.

35th day (Desert 101)

2011-06-09T11:34:00.000+03:00

The Israeli spring ischaracterized by pleasant warm temperatures with a few days of sharav whichare very dry with intense heat. It turned out that the date we planned to dropdown Har Amasah and cross the desert for the first time, a very strong sharav wasforecast. We had fears that even our plan of starting walking at 5 a.m. so thatwe would finish by 10 would leave us dried and fried in the heat.
So we awoke at 4.30, had a cup of coffee, and at 5.00 bid farewell to the Har Amasah Hilton. I'd expected a chill in the air at 5 in the morningat 850 metres above sea level, but the air was what I may describe as"warmish"...not cool and not warm. hmm. An ominous sign of things to come.

This small kibbutz is notonly in the middle of no-where, but is in the middle of no-where on the borderof the green line, so security is an issue. The gate is permanently closed andthere's meant to be a guard on duty 24\7. Well, at 5 A.M. the sleepingcitizens of the kibbutz were on their own. And so were we. The guard was no-where to be seen. Problem is thatthere was a 2 1/2 metre high gate separating us from the white blue and orangemarkings that we were so eager to follow. We had some phone numbers of people to ring but their phones wereeither disconnected or they didn't answer. After 15 minutes of scratching ourbums it was obvious that there was only one solution. If Clint Eastwood coulddo it in "Escape from Alcatraz" we could do it in "Escape fromHar Amasah". So the three 50 year olds somehow scaled the high gate,landed (fell?) softly on the other side and were happy that no-one wasthere to witness what was a very un-graceful manoeuvre.

The downside to our early morning callisthenics was that we got on to the path at 5.30. Normally half an hour earlier or later is irrelevant, but half an hour at 10 or 10.30 in the desert might be very relevant. So be it. Off in the distance beneath us we saw Arad. This is the first time that we could see our end point from the beginning. The first few kilometres we walked up and down gentle hills along the ridge that leads to the peak of Mt. Amasah. It was at once pretty and daunting. The sun was a red ball that turned orange to yellow as it climbed higher over the horizon. Beneath us there were Bedouin settlements and a few stands of trees that dotted the yellow landscape. Very pretty. It was daunting, however, because we had to cross this landscape in order to get to Arad.

After stopping for water at the top of Mt Amasah we started the descent down theside of the mountain into the desert below. Where are your Holy Tablets when you need them? At the foot of the mountain liesthe village of Derijat that is neither Bedouin nor Palestinian Arab but isinhabited by a local Arab tribe that traditionally lived in caves and workedthe land, Fellachim. We hoped to go through it but the path led us within acouple of hundred metres of it, but no closer. It looked neat, tidy andorderly, something that you would never say of any of the Bedouin encampments,villages or cities in the area. Not long after passing Derijat it was back to theBedouins, but not in traditional tents. They were in new caravans. It was a bitweird to pass by a caravan village in the middle of the desert, but if that'sthe way the authorities think they can improve the lot of the Negev Bedouinsthen who am I to argue?. I just hope that the Bedouins agreed to leave theirtents and their nomadic lifestyle for the caravan park.

It was after 8 by thetime we reached Tel Arad and it was getting warm. Even though we couldn't allowourselves to dawdle I didn't want to pass seeing the well preserved ruins ofa city whose history spans from the bronze age, 4,500 years ago tothe more "modern" 1st temple period of the Israelites. As is so oftenthe case when the child in me wants to explore , Yoni and Garry roll theireyes, head for the nearest shade and wait for me to finish looking around. Ifound a hole in the fence, poked through and had a quick look. To behonest, it looked like a big bunch of ruined buildings, which of course isexactly what it is. I certainly couldn't tell the difference between theCanaanite and Israelite architecture but given that we had serious timerestraints and Yoni and Garry were waiting for me, my tour was far from indepth. Under other circumstances, like having an air conditioned car waiting for me atthe end, rather than 2 more hours of walking through rising heat, I would havequite liked to explore the site more fully and at a leisurely pace.

After leaving Tel Aradwe crossed road no. 80 and the scenery changed. Whilst the geography was thesame, before Tel Arad we'd been walking though arid desert. Now we were walkingpast well tended agricultural land that obviously belongs to the Jewishsettlements in the area. It gives discernible meaning to the cliché that the Zionist movement made the desert bloom. There were almond groves,wheat and sunflower fields, grape vines, olives and more. Since we'd been walking inthe open the entire time and once we passed these fields we knew that wouldcontinue in the open, this was the perfect spot to rest a bit and have oursandwiches. Even though we hadn't eaten anything this morning, we were a littlehungry but certainly didn't devour our food with the usual gusto that typifies most of ourshvil legs. For once, eating our sandwiches was an actual physical need ratherthan part of the fun.

From here it was pastthe Arad sewerage treatment plant that smelt just like the bathroom at our roomat Har Amasah. Yuck. Then on to Arad Park which, with rows of spindlypine tree, must be one of the least attractive parks that I've seen. It wasgetting hotter, though not yet unbearably so. We were walking through barrenopen rocky desert and funnily enough, perhaps because it was the first time, wewere really enjoying it. Go figure. The three of us had already finished ourfirst 2 litre bottle of water each and with water stops every 10 minutes or so,were well and truly into our second bottle. Despite the heat and obviousexertion, our shirts were bone dry, the sweat evaporating immediately in thewaterless air. It's actually much more pleasant than being drenched in sweat inthe humid Tel Aviv summer. By the time we reached Arad we will have drunk almost4 litres each!

The final 3 kilomtreswas through nachal Tze'elim which, though not a deep ravine, was quite prettyand a welcome respite from the monotonous landscape that we'd been walkingthrough the previous 10 kilomtres or so. The dry rough creek bed was colouredpurple, red and ochre due to the minerals in the rocks and we could mark itdown as another first in our more than two years on the shvil.

By 10.30 wehad reached Arad and the heat was starting to have a kick to it. We could have plodded another 3 km through town to the car, but it was never a realistic option. Instead, we called a cab and waited on a bench outside the local supermarket, pondering whether the cab-driver would let us 3 derelicts into his car. A brand new shiny Volvo pulled up and judging by the snarl on the driver's face, he wasn't happy having half of the sand of the Negev and 3 smelly Australians filthy up his taxi. He ensured that we had only the minimum possible stay in his cab by covering the distance to Garry's parked car in a time and manner that, had they seen the performance, would have had the Ferrari FI racing team offering him a long term contract. Oh well.

Planning the logisticsproperly allowed us to finish the 20 km without suffering. We also know that aswe get further into the desert after Arad, logistics is going to be even more the make orbreak for us. We'll deal with that as we get closer to the time. For the momentwe were more concerned with quenching our thirst at 11 a.m. with a welldeserved beer back at the Muza pub.

34th day (Along The Border)

2011-06-08T22:51:00.002+03:00

We'd been blessed with a long winter and a late relatively cool spring , which led us to plan an overnight leg that would have us walk through proper desert for the first time at a time of year that may ordinarily be too hot. Our aim was to get to Arad before the enforced summer break .

But before that we had a small section to tie up to complete the sequence. A late afternoon 10 km walk between Meitar and Lahav being the missing piece in the puzzle. Of course we have a bigger piece of the puzzle to complete, in the Jerusalem Hills, but we'll get to that over our next few legs in June and July. Once we complete that we can say we have walked (and driven) from Dan to Arad and are ready to tackle the last, long, hard sections of the Negev to Eilat.

With the usual formalities of meeting, coffee and driving 3 hours just to get to the starting point behind us, we turned off road no. 60 opposite Meitar, looking for a safe place to park. We quickly found the shvil markers adjacent to the road but in strict keeping with our "no road walking" policy, kept driving until the road petered out. Thing is, the road didn't peter out. It continued for about 4 km as far as the settlement of Sansana. As I think I pointed out in the previous blog, this entire area skirts the most southern section of the occupied territories. Sansana looks like it should be on the other side of the security road, alongside the settlements of what we call in Israel, South Mt Hebron. We entered Sansana in order to ask the exact location where the shvil left the road and went into the forest and found a number of young religious families that had many children and the glint in their eyes of those that are fulfilling their Zionist dream. Good on them, I say. At least it's in Israel proper and no-one can claim (other than perhaps the Hammas) that it's disputed or belongs to some-one else. Just 3 km north there are settlements that can't lay stake to such a claim.

It didn't take us too long to find the path. We parked the car and drove off to the Joe Allon centre for Bedouin culture, next to kibbutz Lahav, where we'd spent the night with the Hochberg brothers a few months ago. This was our starting point for today's walk.

It was close to 5 p.m. already and the sting had gone out of the day's heat, which is what we wanted. How do I remember that it was 5 o'clock? Simple. Yoni had a conference call to make at 5 to a business associate in the U.S.A. So before we actually started walking Garry and I had to wander around in circles, aimlessly kicking the dirt, whilst the third member of the party solved the problems of marketing policy for Fred in Atlanta Georgia. The call was much shorter than the one we had to endure in Spolletto, Umbria, where Garry and I were sent to wander the streets for hours while he laid plans for world essence domination. I digress. We dropped down through a thin pine forest and looped back behind the rear gate of Lahav.

We wandered across the dry scrub, crossed a road that linked anonymous point A to anonymous point B and continued on through the scrub. I would be lying if I said that it was the most enthralling section of the shvil, but the late afternoon sun, the waning heat, the cool breeze and the yellow and green surrounding hills made for very enjoyable walking. Two landmarks brought us back to the Middle East. During the previous walk I made comment that the route took us as close as we get to the border fence and security road that marked Israel proper and the occupied territories. I stand corrected (or in this case, walk corrected). The path went within 10 metres of the high fence and security road that is bordered by a wide sand strip that shows if anyone has crossed. Even though it divides between what is theoretically two parts of one country, if it looks like an international border and behaves like an international border then maybe…let's not get too political here.

The second reminder that we were here in a part of the world that knows far too much bloodshed was a small memorial plaque, set into the ground where two people were murdered in 2004. We hurried on, partly concerned for our own safety, it being so close to the occupied territories and partly out of a sort of superstition, with a spooky feeling of not wanting to hang around were people had been murdered.

We made it back at the car barely 2 hours after we dropped it off opposite Sansana. We planned to start walking the next day at 5 a.m and be finished by 10.a.m. so as not to melt in the desert heat and this forced us to get organised today. To this end, Garry's car was parked in Arad at the end point and we went to the local Arad supermarket to buy produce for our sandwiches for the next day. With that out of the way, it was dinner time. We'd been recommended a pub called Muza as the coolest place in Arad and since we're cool characters, made a bee-line for it. And cool it is. The walls and ceiling are covered with scarves of hundreds of football teams from around the world, though not a single one from an Australian Rules football team. We'll have to remedy that. After driving, walking, driving, parking and shopping it was time to do some drinking. The place had a good range of international beers and that was the first thing we dealt with. It didn't take us too long to deal with food either. We didn't think we'd find anywhere normal in Arad, but with a friendly staff, cool ambience, good food and drink, Muza certainly far exceeded our meagre expectations.

By about 9 p.m. it was time to head up to Mt.Amasah. Here too, we didn't know what to expect. If Muza had exceeded our expectations, the shvillers guest room here left us under-whelmed, to say the least. We thought we'd hit rock bottom at Lahav, where there wasn't enough electricity to run the kettle and the heater at the same time. Here at Mt. Amasah there was plenty of electricity and even hot water, but the bathroom stunk of sewerage, so testing the hot water in the shower was not recommended. The tap in the sink didn't work and was held in place by a bucket wedged between the tap and the edge of the sink. If we'd had the energy and didn't have to get up so early the next day we might have actually cleaned the room, something that hasn't been done since Ben Gurion left politics and retired to Sde Boker. Instead, we made sandwiches for the next day, set our alarm clocks for 4.30 and went to bed. Garry and I stoically viewed the accommodations as a quaint shvil experience, not really minding where we spent a few hours between walks. Yoni's deafening silence suggested that he thought otherwise. There's a hotel in Arad and to Yoni's insistence, that's where we'll stay next time we're in the area.

33rd day (Two Halves Equal a Whole)

2011-04-29T21:13:00.004+03:00

We agree every time that it's ridiculous driving 2-3 hours before our shoes see any trail, and every time we set a new record of how much time we waste getting onto the trail, swearing that this is the last time we do it this way. Unfortunately, life constantly gets in the way of our shvil plans. So after leaving home at 5.45, dropping Yoni's daughter Lior off at her air-force base, we hit the shvil at 10 a.m. 10 a.m!!!
We occasionally crib a few hundred metres where possible, since at the end of 20 km, a 500 metre saving is very attractive. However, if cribbing 500 metres means parking your car in a location that is remote enough to allow local car thieves to practise their trade, then parking at the designated start, opposite an army base and forest study centre, seems a far better option. Much of today's walk would be through planted pine forest and the start set the tone. Unfortunately we had unwanted companions in the form of 3 very vicious dogs.

These dogs belonged to the Bedouin shepherd and part time car thief who was tending his flock not far from the path we were walking on. He was obviously angry that we'd parked in a place where he couldn't further his part time career and thus set his dogs upon us. Whilst thankfully we weren't actually bitten, having 3 large, mangy dogs barking and snarling furiously and nipping at your heels is not a great way to start the day's walk. Eventually they lost interest and this proved to be today's only drama. Even Mr. Shvil Painter was well behaved, the markings being plentiful and freshly painted. We didn't have to backtrack even once the whole day. Quite an achievement!
The walking was very peaceful, sometimes in the pine forest, sometimes in the open. I would have thought that even though these pine forests are planted by the J.N.F.,some effort could have been made to make it look natural. This isn't the case however. The Yatir forest consists of perfectly straight rows of planted pine, resembling Elton John's first hair transplant. A random, more natural look would have been more convincing in both cases.

We left the forest and walked through a small nameless valley, passing a Bedouin encampment. Here in the Negev we've driven past Bedouin settlements of Hura, Rahat, Lahia and quite a few tin sheds that pass as encampments. There are Bedouin settlements in the north but it's a different feel. Perhaps it's the sandy desert, or the run-down look, but here in the Negev it's like a different Israel altogether. An Israel that resembles Soweto more than a modern western country.
We passed the Bedouin tin shed, climbed a hill past the Yatir Byzantine ruins and reached the top, where we were met by a platoon of young IDF soldiers, standing in threes, waiting for an exercise or drill to start. This is the first time in close to 500 km of shvil that we'd seen soldiers in manoeuvres. We were surprised to bump into them here, but in retrospect, it's surprising that we hadn't previously encountered other army battalions in training exercises. In any case, Yoni and Garry reminisced about their days of serving the homeland. I had little to add, my 30 days of national service and subsequent stints of guard duty in the reserves having very little affect on the annals of Israel's military history.

There were some slightly more common groups that we encountered en-route. Two groups of through shvillers, one being the "standard" two boys and a girl and another, a pair of older walkers. We don't see many walkers older than us on the shvil and if we do, never through shvillers with their entire earthly belongings strapped to their backs. One was short and wizened, the other tall, thin and rangy. A sort of septuagenarian Tortoise and the Hare. Garry warned that if we didn't get a move on, we'd look like that by the time we reach Eilat. And I don't think he meant it in a positive way. Other common shvill sights included a large group of moto-cross riders, kicking up a dust storm as they drove past. A large group of very serious 4*4 off roaders were having morning tea in a valley we passed through. These vehicles weren't your average soft-road AWD's that might get get you through a mud patch. They all had winches on the front, all sorts of equipment that would help them circumnavigate the moon and looked as if they were preparing to cross the Kalahari. If I was to buy an off road vehicle, it would be one of these heavy-duty ones. Even though I prefer to walk the outdoors, not drive it, doing some real, hard, off-road stuff would be fun.

As we passed trig point 492 and climbed yet another hill, we saw below us a high wire-mesh fence. Between the fence and the adjacent road was a broad sand strip. It looked like a border between enemy states, lets say between Israel and Lebanon, or perhaps an area meant to keep foreigners out, between the US.A and Mexico, for example. It was indeed a border, between Israel proper and the occupied West Bank. It didn't resemble in any way the border of 2 municipalities within Israel, rather It gave the impression that you were about to go into a different country altogether. Hard to see the logic that both sides of a fence like that are part of one country.

We started the day at 650 metres above sea level and walked for a fair bit of time going up and down hills more or less at that height. The last few walks in this area leading to this point have been through semi-desert, green with abundant winter rain. As we head further east and south and the season moves from winter to spring, the green gives way to the dry desert yellow. From this height, looking down to the area below, we saw this transformation quite clearly and it reminded us that from here on in this is what we're going to be walking through. At 650 metres, the weather was quite cool and pleasant. Later in the day we would walk at an altitude of close to 900 metres where the feeling was almost alpine. As we dropped down and approached Meitar at just below 400 metres, the temperature was noticeably higher, the air felt a lot heavier and alpine had given way to desert .
As we walked past Meitar we spotted a family flying model planes.Their dog was keeping them company. As we walked past, the dog gave 2 short barks and sniffed us, tail wagging in welcome. Somehow the comparison with the pack of wolves at the beginning reminded us the differences of cultures in such a small area and how we and our friendly little dogs really don't stand a chance in the rough and tumble reality of the middle-east.

Even though we'd started late and a net drop of 250 metres entailed lots of ups and downs, when we reached Meitar we weren't too tired and had made good time in covering 14 km. With the desire to make the most of the fact that in order to walk in this area we have to drive a long way, we decided to go back to the very start of this leg, at Mt. Amasah and walk through to the forest centre where we'd started. In other words, we started the day in the middle of the leg and walked to the end, then double backed to the actual start of the leg and walked to our starting point, which is actually the middle. Confused? That's nothing compared to the absolute bewilderment on the faces of the 2 groups of through shvillers that we'd seen in the first half, as we crossed paths with them a second time. They couldn't understand how you could cross paths with the same walkers twice in one day. They sheepishly looked over their shoulders, being sure it was a "candid camera" stunt. Not to worry. We may have walked the second half first, but in the end we completed the full 22 km route (with a little bit of obligatory cribbing).

Tuval, where my home is, may not exactly be the centre of the universe, but compared to kibbutz Mt Amasah, it's positively New York City. Mt Amasah is at the end of a road, quite literally, in the middle of no-where, that you climb for what seems forever , winding through backlands that looks like they get only one visitor every three weeks. At almost 900 metres above sea level, this area in no way resembles the desert below. The only thing that reminded us that we were in fact in close to the desert was the large herd of camels grazing happily on the top of the mountain. We're always looking for an alternative method of progressing along the shvil. Perhaps next time we'll ride the shvil on camel. Who knows?

This part of the walk was not substantially different from what we'd seen earlier; ups and downs, through and around pine forests. We did so much walking through pine forest today that upon arriving home, rather than the usual complaints that I'm all sweaty and smelly, Susan and Sivan both commented that I smelt really good, of the fresh outdoors, meaning of pine forest (or they thought that I'd sprayed myself with pine scented air freshener in the bathroom in order to mask the odour of stale sweat).

Our next walk is from Mt. Amasah to the town of Arad. Arad itself holds no particular interest, but after Arad we get onto the last 400 km of hard walking through real desert. We spoke about it along the way, voicing our fears of getting into the most difficult parts of the shvil. We pretty much agreed that we're going to have to lose weight,and get fit in order to complete the remainder of the shvil. It will also take a lot of logistic manoeuvring, resolve and mental toughness.
A couple of hours after setting off from Mt. Amasah we got to Yoni's car. Most of this part had been downhill, but for the final 300 metres that had us climb a steep hill in order to arrive to the entrance to the forest research centre. This final climb was as if to remind us that even if we drop 250 metres in altitude, the shvil is still going to serve us up some uphills.
We'd started later than usual and had walked a long way, so we were eager to head back. We'd gotten three quarters of the way home when the need to replenish protein hit us. Just as well that the El-Sultan restaurant in Zarzir serves good hummus and shawarma.

photo slide show

32nd day (Almost Perfect)

2011-04-18T15:05:00.000+03:00

There was some doubt as to whether we were actually going to get on to the shvil today. I sprained my ankle a couple of months ago and it had been giving me some trouble during the week. I even asked my doctor what she thought and she was quite adamant that 14 km up and down mountains in the Jerusalem Hills was not a recommended cure for swollen ankles. I nodded my head in agreement, took note of her advice and walked anyway. And what a beautiful walk it was.
We knew that the views from The Sataf were impressive because we finished there last time. The Sataf has a number of sites that are worth mentioning. Primarily it is a series of terraces carved into the side of Mt. Eitan, with the ruins of a village that pre-dates the Israelites. These terraces were created about 4500 years ago and were used to grow subsistence crops and indigenous fruit trees. There were also more modern ruins, of the Arab village of Sataf , abandoned (expelled? depends on your political view) in 1948 and the Sataf spring whose water trickled down between the terraces in order to irrigate the crops. And thus we started today's walk, dropping down ancient steps, walking though terraces and past ruins of different styles. As we passed through these terraces we noticed that some of them have been restored and replanted in an effort to reconstruct ancient farming techniques.

After a very enjoyable half hour's walk we bottomed out, walked briefly along a path for a few minutes and then through a tunnel under road no 865. We came out of the tunnel into another world, like the children of Narnia coming through the other side of the wardrobe. The walk thus far had been in the open, past ancient ruins and agricultural terraces. The other side of the tunnel led us directly up another mountain through thick, covered natural forest with no sign of human interference other than the occasional white, blue and orange shvil marking. Civilisation was years away, only a few kilometres from the outskirts of Jerusalem.

Eventually the forest path led through more ancient terraces, but on this mountain the forest and brush had reclaimed the area through lack of use. It was a bit strange, even spooky, seeing the man-made terraces being enveloped by very natural forest. We saw a bit more of both the terraces and the forest than we planned since we missed the sign to turn right. By the time we backtracked and found the unseen marker, we'd wasted a good twenty minutes wandering around the haunted forest. This unfortunately would be a recurring theme in today's walk. Markers were often hidden or non –existent, leaving us to waste time and energy wandering around trying to find the way. To make matters worse, the two books we use proved to be even more inaccurate than usual, both in their description of the route and the maps that they provide. I can't read a map to save myself, but Yoni and Garry couldn't make any sense of the maps either and they're both proven cartographers. It proved to be a constant source of frustration in what was from all other aspects a perfect day's walk.
At this early stage we noticed for the first time other far more positive features that also recurred throughout the walk, the most obvious being the wild-flowers. I don't know enough botany to identify all the flowers blooming along the way, but the red poppies, yellow wild mustard and white, pink and mauve cyclamens were the ones I can name. Almost at every point we were surrounded by combinations of yellow, red, pink and white. The colour and flower type constantly changed, giving the feeling we were walking inside a painting

As is the case when you walk up and down mountains, the views are beautiful and multifaceted. The height, colour and angle are constantly changing, as is the view in accordance. This further enhanced our feeling of walking inside a painting. For example, we saw Moshav Even Sapir firstly from below, at the bottom of a hill. We then we circled it from 2 sides, finally passing it from above. It also frustrated the hell out of us because every where we looked we saw this bloody moshav, which led us to believe that we were merely walking around in circles and not actually progressing.The impression that we were walking in circles, which was actually the case in a number of instances, was another recurring theme of the day's walk.

I stray, just like us on the walk. Eventually we found the right path that led us through the overgrown terraces. This area has many springs and the path led us past them. If the word "springs" conjures images of picturesque pools filled with pure water, percolated up from an underground, rain-fed reservoir, inviting just you to take a dip, then your dreaming of Switzerland. This is Israel, where springs are often dirty, smelly concrete holes, half full of stagnant water, inviting dysentery to any fool-hardy enough to try their luck. I imagine that until recently, say 50 years ago, these springs really were quite enticing, tucked away in forest so close to Jerusalem. I suppose being this close to Jerusalem is the reason why that they can't stay in their pristine condition. So after the Sataf spring, we passed Uzzi, Tamar, Sarig, Amindav and Shalmon springs, amongst others whose names I don't know. Some were hidden in caves, some in stagnant pools as mentioned, others in holes in the ground and one, in a pool which almost looked inviting, but for the rowdy group of 20 kids camping there. It seems that they were a sort of organised group of rowdy kids, as there were some older rowdy adults with them, teaching them the essential lessons of being an Israeli out in nature; make noise and barbecue chicken wings on a small portable tin barbecue. I hate to think what the place looked like when they left. Close to another spring, we saw two young haredi men, walking along the path together, bright pink towels draped over their shoulders. The bright pink towels seemed a little incongruous relative to the standard black haredi outfits that they wore, leading us to theorise that perhaps they were searching for a secluded spot in order to engage in some most definitely un-haredi behaviour. We didn't investigate further, but it was more likely that the thin mountain air had simply addled our brains and imaginations.

The path takes a long, steady, if not sharp incline, which meant we walked appreciably slower than our regular fast, 4-5 k/mh pace. As we rose, we gradually approached the back of the Haddasah Ein Kerem hospital complex, until we were directly beneath it. The shvil touches the outskirts of Jerusalem here and this is as close to Jerusalem as it gets. And do either of the guide books make mention that the giant compound that we were walking towards is one of Israel's most important hospitals? Or that this is as close as we get to this insignificant little village called Jerusalem? Nah, the basis for the name of the Shalmon Spring is far more important information in a book that describes the route of Israel National Trail. Go figure.

As the Hadassah Ein Kerem hospital complex loomed large ahead of us, the forest changed from planted pine to burnt pine. A fire had obviously burnt the area quite recently as very little vegetation had grown back over the winter and walking through was spooky in an altogether different way to the forest that reclaimed the ancient terraces. The burnt out area was not large and we continued through the pine forest, climbing ancient stairs or terraces, passing springs or ruins along the way. With perfect weather and being amongst the spring flowers , not for the first time, we muttered in agreement, "it doesn't get any better than this".

Except for the missing or hidden markers. We always find sections where we have to stop and look for a marker, and even backtrack a hundred metres to find a marker that we don't see but is actually in plain site. Today markers were often in places that you had to search for them in illogical places or know ahead where they were, which of course makes no sense, given that we had never previously been on the route. Alternately, instead of markings every 100 metres or so, they were spaced every 200 or 300 metres and not at strategic positions. Perhaps the Shvil Elders had put Mr Shvil Painter on a tight budget, or he was pocketing the money meant to buy paint. What a scandal. I think it warrants a shvil investigation. And it happened over and over again. Garry aptly remarked that you would never imagine what joy a can of spray paint could bring to 3 middle aged men. At one particular point, at the Amindov forest perhaps, (we wouldn't know, since neither book mentions the well laid out, carefully maintained picnic spot and lookout point), we totally misplaced the markers. Yoni backtracked almost a kilometre whilst Garry and I explored different paths in different directions. And once again, the books may well have been describing nuclear physics for all the help they were in getting us where we had to get to. If you were to add up the years the three of us have known each other you get to a sum of over a hundred. It's a sign of how well we know each other when Garry asked me my opinion about which way I think we should go and promptly set off in the opposite direction. Not only did I not get the slightest bit angry, I silently congratulated him for ignoring my gut feeling and broken sense of direction. Sure enough, a kilometre down the trail, in the opposite direction to the way I would have gone, Garry found the shvil markings. We'd wasted at least half an hour not being lost, but not being found either.

When we saw what lay ahead, we had second thoughts about finding the right path. Directly beneath us, about 300 metres down, was a wide dirt track. In order to get there the shvil had us drop down a near vertical "path", sliding down on our bums over hard rock as much as walking, one foot after the other. I quite enjoy these steep downhills, despite the risk to an already problematic ankle. Yoni has some eye-foot co-ordination issues and finds these vertical drops quite scary. Garry is an old mountain goat that chugs along no matter the terrain. We arrived to the bottom safe and sound, glad to walk for a while on an easy, wide, well marked trail. To this point we'd been on the trail for at least 4 hours and had covered perhaps 8 kilometres, including unwanted stops and backtracking. We still had a long way to go. It was frustrating to Yoni to have useless guide books and maps. He couldn't get a grip on where we were, where we had to go next and approximately how long more we'd be on the trail. I also like to have some sort of sense of where we are, but since it was obvious that we were on our own on this one, took it as a fact and relaxed. Garry has his no-nonsense mountain goat attitude, continuing on, one step at a time.

Before we started the cliff-face descent we saw in the distance two lone cyclists struggling up a very steep hill. I constantly wonder where the fun is in trying to cycle up such a steep hill. I guess cyclists who see me, red faced and puffed out, struggling up some near vertical rock face, may ask themselves the same question (then again, at that particular junction in time I too might ask that same question of myself). As we strode down the path after the big drop, a worried looking man slowly drove up, asking if we'd seen his two children cycling in the area. I figured he was asking about the two lonely cyclists we'd seen from afar. You see all kinds of weird things on the shvil.
The pleasant, uneventful walking continued a bit, on a nice and easy downhill. Of course, every downhill has its uphill, and the one we were about to encounter was a real doozy. After 9km of shvil and at least another 2 trying to find the shvil, over 5 hours, we started the climb up nachal Kobi already feeling quite tired. It's only 1.5 km, but straight up. Between heart palpitations I managed to notice that it was as beautiful as anything we'd done today and if you haven't guessed, to this point its been pretty dammed pretty. We were back in natural, overgrown forest, dark and lush and green. Overcoming fears of cardiac arrest, we got to Kobi spring and found an empty picnic table becking us to place 3 cups, a thermos of herbal tea and chocolate croissants on it. Who are we to argue with empty picnic tables? In any case, no amount of chocolate croissants would replace the calories we'd just burnt.

After a nice rest we set off in order to finish the last 4 km. Of course, we lost the path or markings a few more times, cursing the day that Mr Shvil Painter got his first can of spray paint. We misplaced the markings in a Bedouin camp, where mangy dogs that looked like they hadn't eaten for a while came running up, snarling and barking, thinking dinner had finally walked in. We took a wrong turn walking across open fields and couldn't find the marking at a junction of two paths. The two authors of the guide books obviously conspired with Mr Shvil Painter, copying the descriptions of today's leg from a 1974 manual of field trips in Upper Saxony. Never-the-less, we made it back to my car, happy to see the vehicle but just as happy to have done a good, hard, challenging walk. All the major muscles and some of the minor ones in my legs were cramping in unison. Do you know what its like having your thigh, calf and hamstring arguing over which one can cause the most discomfort? I know. Certainly it was the hardest, prettiest and most varied walk we'd done for a long time. We had flowers, forests, caves, springs, ruins, steep hills and beautiful views, over a relatively compact 14 km. It took us two hours longer to cover these 14 km than it does to cover a regular, easier, 18 km. And we loved every minute of it. Almost.

31st day (Tea Break Dramas)

2011-03-27T16:24:00.001+02:00

If I ever needed proof when I claim that life gets in the way of the shvil, February-March 2011 has given it. The combination of mild weather, fresh green vegetation and blooming wildflowers provide ideal walking conditions. And yet, between trips overseas, children's school trips, sprained ankles and an assortment of other inconveniences, it's been over a month since our last walk and the near future is not so near. Pity.
Even today we couldn't get an overnight in the Negev together, so we sufficed with a one day walk in the Jerusalem Hills. We had hoped that our two guests from the last walk in this area, Mark and Rinat, would join us again today but their lives, in the form of Purim parties, put a stop to that. Pity.
So it was just the regulars, Yoni, Garry, Tracey and I who met up for a double macchiato on kvish 6. By 8 we'd driven 2 1/2 hours to the outskirts of Jerusalem from the north, dropped a car of at the end and fell out of Garry's car at The Sataf, a national park just outside the capital. You can do the maths yourselves to work out what time I had to roll out of bed in order to be ready to walk at 8 a.m. Pity

After the usual indecision as to which way was the right direction we set off. As usual, in the right direction. Even before we'd managed to warm the muscles we found ourselves dropping steeply down the side of the mountain. I guess it's to be expected that the only way is down when you start on top of a mountain. We'd commented that since we completed the section down Mt Carmel we hadn't done a really hard walk. A long day's walking here, a steep climb there, but nothing to compare to tumbling down Mt Carmel, going up and down mountains around Nazareth or Mt Tabor or the challenges of Nachal Amud. Today's walk also wouldn't make it into the "difficult" list.

Not long after we bottomed out from the descent of the Sataf, the path led us up Mt Tzuba as far as Kibbutz Tzuba which sits on top of the mountain. A good 20 minute pant up the steep hill, a stop at the top for water and to catch our breaths and that was it for physical challenges for the day. From here we crossed the road, entered into Nachal Cisslon and would continue on an easy descent as far as Bnei Brit Caves. From Tzuba you could discern the downhill slope, but the further in to the nachal we went the flatter it got. The decline became so slight that we'd forgotten that we were in fact descending. Upon passing a group of walkers who were resting in the shade, we exchanged pleasantries which included what a lovely day for walking it was. They answered that it was far more pleasant descending as we were doing, than ascending, their direction of walking. As I said, the slope was so gentle that we didn't feel the descent, but obviously the same slope walked upwards has an entirely different feel.
This gentle slope was in keeping with the general aspect of the area; nothing harsh, difficult or breathtaking, just a pleasant, relaxing forested stroll. A day out. Nachal Cisslon itself is somewhat like a funnel. It is broad and shallow at the top, the area around Tzuba being very open. As we progressed down the nachal it becomes narrower and deeper with higher and more acute valley walls. The Bnei Brit Caves are located in a canyon at the foot of nachal Cisslon, surrounded by sheer walls and mountains.
The only landmark en-route was really quite unremarkable. Ein Limon is a concrete rectangular spring with dirty smelly water and a dank cave behind it. There are also some unidentifiable ruins surrounding the spring. We would have completely missed it had I not asked my 3 fellow walkers to wait up a bit while I explored the cave. As is usually the case, I explore the cave and they mockingly grin.

As with the previous walk we'd done in this area, up Mt Carmilla and along the Burma Route, we saw many walkers and cyclists of varying ages and shapes. This was not at all surprising given the season and the area. What was surprising was that we didn't see any through-shvillers, given that late winter is prime shvil season. We did see a group of three girls who looked as if they might be the first shvillers we'd seen for many months, but as we approached and eventually crossed paths we noticed that these girls were missing the unmistakable features of the through-shvillers species. So how do you tell a shviller from a day tripper? Enormous "everything-but-the-kitchen-sink" backpacks is a start. In addition, through-shvillers have a certain ambience about them. It’s a grungy, foot weary yet contented look that comes from being in the great outdoors for a long time and with the knowledge that you're going to be in the same great outdoors for a while yet. And these girls had neither.

Just because the route had an easy going, early spring feel about it doesn't mean that the day passed without drama. Far from it. Luckily we were merely confused observers to a somewhat surreal theatre. We'd been walking a while, at our usual Olympics training pace, when we came to a junction and a lovely flat grassy knoll, shaded by a large oak tree. We figured we didn't have much more than about an hour's walking till the end and we hadn't had either Garry's herbal tea and chocolate croissants nor our gourmet home-made sandwiches. This was the the perfect spot. Just as we crossed over towards the place where we were about to sit we heard maniacal screaming aimed at us in a language that may have been Arabic but we certainly didn't understand. The din was coming from a lady sitting inside a Bedouin tent adjacent to our tree. Perhaps she objected to our presence. Perhaps the tree was holy and forbidden for us to sit under. Perhaps she was merely stark raving mad. Eventually what at first sounded like Arabic turned out to be sort-of Hebrew, and we think that she was offering to sell us freshly made pitta breads. We were too scared to refuse yet too scared to approach the mad-woman. In the end we decided that we had enough food and the risk of engaging her in some sort of attempted communication was greater than the risk of insulting her by ignoring her. I'm convinced we made the right decision.

10 metres from where we were sitting, a trio of cyclists rested against a tree. Cyclists have been a common sight so far but this small group was a bit different. Firstly they were all appreciably older than us and we're not exactly yearling lambs. Secondly they all wore the same yellow cycling uniforms, as if they all belonged to the Jerusalem Hills Octogenarian Cycling Club. Thirdly, all their cool looking cycling gear was far too small for them, with their bellies sticking out from the shirts. Now I know that I'm sitting here commenting about others whilst I have more than an extra kilo or two on my frame. For that reason I don't wear body hugging lycra bicycle gear... way too ugly for the innocent observer. It makes you look less sporty, not more. Suddenly, this group was met by another equally aged and only slightly less over-weight trio of cyclists, all dressed in identical red gear, let's say from the Jerusalem Plains Octogenarian Cycling Club. Judging by the body language, these two groups plainly knew each other well, as if they were competitors from rival clubs who had competed so often over the years that they'd become friends.

And now the fun-and-games started. In general, Arabs don't keep dogs as pets, Bedouins even less. If they do keep a pet, it's usually a scroungy mongrel. So imagine our surprise when enter stage left we saw a small Bedouin girl dragging an enormous dog on a leash. This semi-horse was bigger and stronger than the girl. Two minutes later a middle aged Jewish couple came marching up and demonstratively snatched the leash from the girl's hand and started dragging the dog in a different direction. The girl tried to prevent this from happening but to no avail. The girl's younger brother joined the fray, adding drama and lots of very colorful language for one so young. We didn't need to understand fluent Arabic to understand very clearly what he was saying. The only one indifferent to the action was the dog. He didn't seem to mind who dragged him, which is probably just as well. I wouldn't want to see a dog of that size show it's anger. The young boy was obviously meant to be the family's goat-herd. Due to his lack of attention, the herd of goats sort of ran away. They didn't disperse in all directions but as a flock came to the nearest human(s) they could find, namely us. As we sat under the tree, munching on our sandwiches, watching the drama unfurl in front of us, we were invaded by a herd of goats. We were quietly minding our own business and they just came to us and between us, without fear, as if we weren't there at all. We had in this little scene all the ingredients of a Beckett inspired theatre of the absurd performance; the din of the mad woman shrieking from the tent, the over-aged, overweight team cyclists, the girl, the horse-sized dog, the Jewish couple and the battle over the possession of the dog and the young boy swearing in a foreign language. And the audience (us) suddenly was thrown into the drama in an unexpected manner. And what do we call this production? Mayhem on the shvil? Dog Day Afternoon? (with apologies to Al Pacino). I'll be happy to receive other suggestions. The winning suggestion gets free tickets to opening night.

Back to the shvil. Eventually everything calmed down, though I'm still not sure what caused the ruckus and what the final outcome was. At any rate, 5 minutes after we left our grassy patch we returned to usual shvil conversations, which have no usual pattern or topic at all. Barely an hour after we left the commotion of our tea break dramas we were back at the car.

Having eaten merely an hour before we were content to exploit the relatively early finishing time and get home to spend the afternoon with our families, without stopping for lunch. From Bnei Brit caves we drove back to Sataf to pick up the car from our starting point. Just as we were about to split up and head north one of us spotted a small arrow-shaped sign with the silhouette of a goat etched into it and the words "Mt Eitan Goat Farm and Dairy…3km " Well, what's a 3 km detour if we've already driven all this way, I ask? 15 km later (talk about misleading advertising) we arrived to this delightful farm in the middle of no-where. At the end of a winding dirt road, it is surrounded by forest, tucked into the side of the mountain. It has the unmistakable smell of goat's pens and a slightly hippy atmosphere that you might expect from a place so far from civilization. There was nothing hippy (or low-fat) about the cheeses however. We bought a delicious cheese platter that consisted of a combination of hard, matured cheeses, fresh cheeses, feta and ripened camembert style cheese, served with homemade bread. I re-iterate. We weren't hungry before we ordered the platter. We were full by the time we stuffed the last morsel of cheese into our mouths. We've never claimed that we have to starve on the shvil.

30th day (How Green is My Wheat Valley?)

2011-02-18T20:46:00.000+02:00

I had been warned that the section between kibbutz Dvir and Pura nature reserve is not the most interesting section of the shvil. Now that is an understatement!
The walk from Dvir to Pura is only an easy 10 km, far too short for us intrepid shvillers. We decided to add on an extra 4 km, starting at the entrance to the Dvir Forest. These first four kilometres had us walk with the J.N.F planted pine forest to our right, green wheat fields to our left. At some point Mr. shvil painter decided that this was too monotonous even for him, so he led us briefly into the forest and out on to the other side. Now the forest was on our left and the green wheat fields on our right. This is not the badlands area of the previous day, so the wheat fields are expansive, at least by Israeli, if not American or Australian standards. At least it was green and pleasant. Come late spring or summer it would be unbearably hot and unbearably brown\grey and boring.

At some point in the forest we saw piles of rocks stacked in such a way that it wasn't certain if it was deliberate, like some sort of memorial, or a demolished building, or an ancient ruin. We didn't stop to check it out, though in retrospect, perhaps we should of. Any point of interest would have been welcome.
We had a slight dilemma as to what pace to set for ourselves today. On the one hand, we'd set out relatively early, seeing no reason to lounge around the Lahav Hilton, nor was there a reason to drag our feet as we wanted to get home to enjoy the weekend with our families. In general we tend to walk quickly and as I wrote in the previous chapter, we'd set a cracking pace the day before. We didn't, want to walk at that same pace today. We did, however, have to keep our eye on the weather. The sky was grey and the forecast was for rain, so we couldn't dawdle too much. Here and there we encountered very light drizzle, nothing that really worried us, but certainly warned us that it could at any point get heavier.
So after 4 relaxed kilomtres we came to kibbutz Dvir. Garry was quite excited. Kibbutz Dvir owns a plastic factory that makes large sized products and therefore has large injection moulders. This is a field that Garry apparently works with in his non-shvil business life.
From here on, we would have Nachal Shikma to our right and green wheat fields to our left. It says something when the highlight of the day was Yoni pulling a carrot out of the ground as we passed by a carrot field. We cleaned off the clumpy mud and shared it, unpeeled and au natural, between the five of us (the Hochberg Brothers were sharing this exhilarating leg with us). Whoopee!!!

Sometimes trail markers take the form of small metal signs hammered into the ground, painted with the white\blue\orange colours. They are not deeply anchored and we've seen them upended on a few occasions. .At some point we saw such a metal shvil marker leading us across Nachal Shikma on a path that seemed away from our general walking direction. This wouldn't be the first time that the shvil has taken us on either an understood or vague detour, so we shrugged and went in the direction of the sign. Soon enough we came to realise that the metal sign was in the wrong place. It seems that a shviller before us had understandably been bored by the walking , picked up the sign and placed it in a position that would lead those coming after astray. A pretty lame joke and thankfully only the first time in 2 years on the shvil that we'd encountered a moveable marker deliberately moved to the wrong place. Being the Good Samaritans that we are, we uprooted the metal sign and put it into the ground in a place that it should have been, with the nachal on our right and the fields on our left.

And that's about it. This was a section that connected point A to point B. You put a tick in the box and move on to the next leg. We were a little tired and a little stiff after 26 km in under 24 hours. It raises an interesting question that I don't think there is any clear answer to. What is our comfort zone? How many kilomtres can we walk comfortably? Clearly terrain, weather and logistics are factors that prevent any one clear answer, but I think that we acknowledge that 18 kilometres is what we like to do in a one day hike. More than that in one go may start to look difficult. 26 very easy km in 24 hours was not hard and I think another 4 km would have been well within our abilities. We are in agreement that as long as the walking is easy and the weather ideal, we want to push ourselves as much as we can within our comfort zone or even slightly past it.

We got back to Yoni's car 5 minutes before the rains started, a sure sign that once again the shvil gods were looking out for us. In celebration of our good fortune and early finishing, we decided to offer up a sacrifice to those same shvil gods and stopped off for hummus at Abu No-Name, who sells his product from a caravan in a car-park close to Lachish. The hummus may not have been up to the standard of what we're used to in the Galil, but all the same, was accepted by the gods as an appropriate offering.

29th day (Badlands Sprint)

2011-02-17T20:44:00.000+02:00

Only 2 weeks after tackling Mt. Carmilla and the Burma Road Historical Picnic Table Route we were back on the trail, back to the Negev. Negev means another overnight.
We actually started a little later than what we would have liked. I had to stop off in Gadera along the way, wasting 30 precious pre shvil minutes, but that's another story. If you don't know where Gadera is, it's not on the shvil so you have no reason to look it up on Google maps. Believe me, you have no reason to look it up.

At 2.30 on a midwinter's day we got out of Yoni's car at Pura Nature Reserve, knowing that we didn't have a lot of time to get through the 12 km to my van before we ran out of light. Once again I had my trusty torch but I really didn't want to use it. We managed to finish just before 5 p.m. Sunset is about 5.30. If you take into account the obligatory stop for Garry's herbal tea and chocolate croissants, that's about a very quick 5 km per hour. We're in training for the Olympics.
Here and there I'd read a few things about the Pura nature reserve; about how pretty it is, about how there's a seasonal winter lake and about how it's an oasis in this semi-desert area. Must have been written by a blind man, or maybe I'm the blind man. Either way, I couldn't see any delineation between what was nature reserve and what wasn't, other than a few paths and wooden railings, put there apparently for the blind guy that said that it was something special. Still, it's better than grey industrial parks in Shoham.
Once we left the nature reserve it became quite pretty quite quickly. We were walking through rolling hills carpeted with bright green wheat fields. These wheat fields weren't large expanses of hundreds or thousands of dunams but parcels of green, obstructed by pieces of ground that couldn't be cultivated because they are constantly dropping and shifting. These are the Ruchama badlands. I always thought that badlands were areas occupied by lawless Cowboys or unruly Indians but apparently this isn't the case. Badlands are areas that are bad for agriculture because they are pocked with unstable, eroded and infertile patches. No matter. It made for a more interesting patchwork landscape.

If I'm already talking about badlands and those good old cowboys and Indians westerns, then the wild west imagery was enhanced by the broken down railway bride that we walked under. This bridge was part of the old Turkish (Ottoman) railway that went from Beirut to Cairo. There are not many remnants of it left here in Israel but here was a broken down brick structure that you might or might not recognise as an old train bridge. A tel here, a ruin there, it's just more evidence of another civilisation that has come and gone in this tiny, much-fought-over corner of the world that is the meeting place of Asia, Africa and Europe.

I don't remember the natural light being so obviously different last winter, when we were walking in the north. I know I've mentioned it these last few legs but once again the combination of weaker sun, cloud cover and late afternoon made the light soft, almost dull. The light and the time of day make for a totally different mindset. On one hand, getting up at 4.30 in the summer in order to drive a long way or to get on to the trail early enough to beat the heat puts you in a state of mind that almost makes the shvil like a workday, something to be negotiated. It gets hot quickly, the light is bright and glaring and you feel like your being tested. Yet when we start in the afternoon in the winter, everything is much gentler and more relaxed. The surroundings are green, the light subtle and subdued. You barely sweat. It may seem as if I clearly prefer the winter but this isn't the case. I like the heat and the challenge of a good hard day on the shvil but late afternoon walks are no less enjoyable. Just different. The vast majority of shvillers are young kids through walking, doing the entire route in one go over a two month period. I truly admire them. I've noticed, however, that one clear advantage of doing it as we do, a section at a time, a month at a time, is that we experience all the seasons and the natural cycle of the year. It adds another aspect to an already fascinating and multifaceted journey.
Back to the trail. We passed though the "gate" that used to be the railway bridge and followed the course of Nachal Shikma (sycamore). By the way, ex prime minister, general, etc Arik Sharon's ranch is called the Shikma Ranch and is located at the end of this creek, about 10 km away. Just as we were getting used to the landscape we came upon Tel Nagila (no relation to "hava nagila"). It was a short, steep climb to the top. The Tel is not that high, less than 100 metres above the surrounding countryside, but it was high enough to afford breathtaking 360° views. The tel on the surrounding landscape was something akin to an outy belly-button on a wavy stomach. The landmark was further emphasised by the very large acacia tree on top of the tel. This tel and its acacia tree are visible around the entire area. Over the next 8 km we would look around and always had the tree-topped belly button in view.

We continued walking alongside Nachal Shikma until the path abruptly turned right into Nachal Sed . This nachal is an anomaly for this area. Nachal Shikma is reasonably broad and shallow but Nachal Sed resembles a canyon, albeit not a very deep one. The walls are sheer and have papyrus reeds and even scattered date palms growing on the creek floor. The rocks that formed the small canyon were also very different from the surrounding area, but don't ask me to list what type of rock was here and what rock makes up the rest of this area, for I wouldn't have a clue. The path above the canyon that we were walking on was very close to the rim. It afforded us a good view of the canyon but a slip here would not have been much fun.

Speaking of slip, there was a fair bit of mud along the path as it had rained a lot during the previous days. Even today, the sky was overcast and the air was damp, but it never really threatened to rain. We were pretty sure that someone was going to slip at some point, Yoni being the bookies choice. Even he backed himself to be the first one to fall. The long shot was the winner. Garry is usually the most sure-footed but today was the first to get his knees dirty. Yoni did get the prize for the most spectacular, muddy fall and by luck I managed to stay relatively clean, or at least, on my feet.
We came out of Nachal Sed, wandered around the wet desert for a bit longer, passed a nice little eucalypt forest and then a pine forest and arrived back at my van at Tel Keshet at 5.00 p.m. Light was just beginning to fade. I almost needed my torch. Once again, we'd had a lovely afternoon stroll. A bit longer and a lot quicker than the previous afternoon stroll but very enjoyable, all the same.
I spend a lot of time criticizing Mr Shvil Painter and his bosses, the Shvil Elders, for their choices in determining the exact route the shvil takes. For once, I have a good word for them. It is only about 5 km along the busy route no. 40 between Pura nature reserve and Tel Keshet. Mr. Shvil Painter lay down a meandering 12 km route to cover the 5 km and it's easy to see why. The Ruchama badlands, the Turkish railway bridge, Tel Nagila and Nachal Sed would all be reason enough by themselves for a detour. All together in a small area, it would have been a crime to have missed them.

As is usually the case with our overnights, the walking may have finished but activities hadn't. The shvil goes right past kibbutz Lahav and the kibbutz has kindly set aside an old 2 room apartment for shvillers that come through. This was our abode for the night. Now I'm no snob, but I'm also not 21 years old anymore. We were all transported back 30 years when we all spent 6 months in a hovel on kibbutz as part of our post-school bridge year. The place was clean and tidy and well looked after BUT only had enough electricity for one electric appliance at a time. That is, only one heater can be on at any one time. The second room stays cold. If you want to use the kettle, both heaters go off. The hot water boiler for the shower? No kettle and no heaters. We learnt that we needn't go cold for the sake of the hot water boiler. It didn't work. No hot showers. At least there was running (cold) water. We were warned that if we didn't obey the electricity rules then the fuse would trip and the fuse box is in a locked room that we don't have access to. We took the warning seriously and still had electricity when we left the next morning.
We were joined at the apartment by two old friends visiting Israel from Australia. The Hochberg brothers, Danny and Joel stayed the night and walked the next day's leg with us. Danny was with us in Israel us on our machon year programme in 1978. Joel we know as Danny's younger brother. He'll be 80 and Danny will be 82 and he'll still be Danny's younger brother.
We'd heard of a restaurant called Little India and decided to give the lamb korma a try. I picked Sivan up from her shnat sherut with Kamea, her boyfriend who was visiting from his shnat sherut and met the others there. Yoni, who sometimes has a propensity to grumpiness, arrived at his grumpy worst. No hot water, conditions that took him back to the 70's and an empty stomach. Watch out world. It went from terrible to disastrous. Not only was there no lamb korma, there was no chicken tikka and no beef vindaloo. It was a fucking vegetarian restaurant. Garry had finally gotten his revenge for all those meals we've schlepped him to over the years, at steak houses, smoke-rooms and other assorted non-vegetarian adventures. The carnivores were not impressed. As it turned out, the food was quite good, we had some fish masala and lentil curry and left in far better spirits than when we arrived. I'll let you into a hush-hush secret, never to be revealed outside this blog….the carnivores actually enjoyed the vegetarian meal.
Back at the apartment, we were in bed by 10.30, prepared for an early start the next day. The Hochberg brothers didn't understand why my permanent shvil partners insisted on me sleeping in their room, but come morning they complained that common decency should dictate that they be warned about the Midnight Trumpet Concerto in B Flat. Guess they won't be joining me for a sleepover again in the foreseeable future.

28th day (Highland Playgrounds)

2011-01-21T20:41:00.000+02:00

It's rare that we start a leg with trepidation.

We may have strayed from post-shvil Abu Negev humus of late, but that doesn't stop us having semi regular humus at Abu Rami, our "home brand" humus joint. So over humus on Sunday we discussed the upcoming leg, worrying about the very steep ascent of Mt. Carmila and then continuing for another long 18 kilomtres to the end. In the 2 years we've been shvilling we've managed to successfully dodge serious up-hills. We either deny their existence (Starting at the top of Mt Tabor rather than the bottom) or change the direction of the walk so it would be downhill rather than uphill (Mt. Meron, the Arbel). Mountains that we couldn't avoid (Mt Devorah or Mt. Yona, both on the same day!) caused us a masochistic mix of enjoyment, suffering and exhaustion. When I got into Yoni's car at 5.30 (that's right, in the morning.) and expressed that my fears of tackling the climb had occupied my thoughts all week, he echoed the same doubts. When we met up with Garry and Tracey, they too said that it had been on their minds. Even Garry, bruised and sore from falling off the roof of his house, didn't exactly exude his normal easy going mindset. I refused however to entertain the possibility of starting at the top, even though there is a road that would have taken us there. The only concession we made for ourselves was parking at Neveh Shalom rather than the Latrun monastery, saving about a kilometre and a half at the end.
We welcomed two new guest-shvillers with us today. Mark was getting a Friday off from the Boss to join us and Rinat was making good a long held threat of doing a leg with us. The 5 of us finished high school together 34 years ago. The guests didn't get the courtesy of a warning in regards to Mt. Carmilla, for fear of them chickening out. What you don't know can't hurt you.

So there we were, in the car-park of the Bnei Brit Cave, looking up at the hill we were about to climb. At least it was early, the weather cool and the trail passed through forest. We couldn't start up the path though until we'd had a look at the cave. The road leading to the cave runs through what is called the Martyr's Forest. World Bnei Brit has planted six million trees in the forest in memory of the six million Jews murdered during the holocaust. Along the way we saw plaques embedded into the rocks that bordered the road, commemorating specific victims. The cave is a place where members of the Bnei Brit world organisation come to remember those victims. As would be expected, the area around the cave is neat, well tended and quiet, modestly set in a valley surrounded by the Jerusalem Hills and forest. The cave itself is, well, a cave. Just three chambers, two entrances and it
self as modest as the surroundings outside. The area doesn't resemble the large grandiose spectacles that we might sometimes expect from Diaspora Jewish organisations.

Lingering in the environs of the cave a few moments more, in order to stall the beginning of our clambering up the mountain, we eventually made our way to the trail head. After a hundred metres we stopped to make sure we were on the right path. We were climbing alright, but so gently that we didn't believe that this was the mountain that had us pleading to our cardiologists to forbid us from attempting the climb during the week. Gradually, however, the sweaters came off, pulse rates went from 90 to 120 to 150 a minute and the sweat started to build. Water stops allowed us to catch our breaths and awe at the breathtaking views. By the time we came out of the forest path onto a dirt track, which marked the end of the steepest part of the climb, we felt we'd had a good workout. But no more than that. No crawling up ravines, no clinging to vertical rock faces, no swearing that this was the last time we'd ever attempt such a foolhardy endeavour. Simply a good workout. Perhaps it was the cool of the morning, or tackling the climb at the beginning of the day. Maybe it didn't seem so hard because we were distracted by the magnificent clear views, starting beneath the mountains and gradually climbed up to the height of the surrounding hills and then above, or perhaps the refreshing conversation of friends not seen for many years or a few days. Whatever the reason, the climb was fantastic. We sat down, drank some more water, exchanged pleasantries with the first batch of many mountain-bike riders that we saw, and continued on our merry way. It's strange how the numerous bike riders we see treat us with a mix of contempt and confusion, not quite understanding how anyone would want to be in the great outdoors on foot rather than on bicycle. We can't quite understand why someone would want to work so hard as to pedal when walking is so much slower and more pleasant. And never the twain shall meet.

The bicycle path continued on a gradual upward incline, which after what we'd just done was barely felt.

Soon we came to a bitumen road (the one we could have taken if we'd decided to dodge the ascent) leading to the chicken sheds of some moshav and then onwards to some other moshav. A tour bus was parked on the other side of the road but no tourists were to be seen. Crossing the road, we continued along the marked shvil track. A couple of hundred metres on we found the tourists from the said tour bus in a clearing. The clearing was next to some picnic tables that just beckoned to have 6 cups, Garry's herbal tea, chocolate croissants, Sigal's (Yoni's wife) banana cake, Rinat's cheese cake and Mark's halva bars placed down on it. Have I mentioned before that we're never hungry? This is getting ridiculous. And tasty. So whilst we sipped our tea and replaced double the calories that we'd spent going up the hill, we heard the tour guide explain about the importance of this area in the war of independence and the importance of remembering and respecting those that gave their lives so the state could be born. We were now on the Burma Road, the route that was used to reach Jerusalem during the War of Independence, since the primary route through the Jerusalem Corridor was controlled by the Arabs. I'm not an historian but I think it's agreed that Israel wouldn't have been able to hold West Jerusalem had we not had this avenue to the city. The remainder of today's walk was along the Burma Road

The Burma Road is not only an important area in the history of the fledgling State of Israel, It is situated in the Jerusalem Hills, the closest set of mountains to the 4 million people that live in the centre of the country. The combination of these two facts ensures that many people visit this area annually and it is thus well maintained. The entire area is managed by the Keren Kayemet, with signs explaining the historical significance of each point, folksy cut-out sculptures to help the simple-minded understand the significance of the area and lots and lots of picnic tables. We saw more picnic tables today than what we'd seen in total these past two years on the shvil. A real highland playground. And very well done, at that. If we'd adopted our usual habit of sitting and drinking, eating or resting at every pretty, tabled picnic spot, we'd still be on the trail now and our spouses would have had to send out search parties to find us. Oh dear.

So there we were, sitting down at the first of the thousands of picnic tables we would pass today, half listening to the guide, half trying to have a whispered conversation so as not to disturb the guide and his group that was here before us. Eventually the guide ushered the group back to the bus and we could have a normal conversation. As we got up to leave, we passed the clearing where the guide had been instilling Zionist values into his flock. It's a pity that his Zionist values didn't include keeping his beloved country clean. The mess his group left was a shameful example of how the ugly Israeli might like to experience nature but won't see the importance of keeping that same nature clean. Perhaps because this area is so heavily touristed and the Keren Kayemet has put so much effort into the trail, there are workers whose job it is to keep the parks clean. Other than the litter here, we saw very little of the strewn rubbish that we've seen in other places on the shvil. It could well be that by the end of the day the cleaning crew had come through and cleaned up after the Zionist guide and his disciples. We'll never know

Soon we came upon mishlat (command-point) no.16. Dotted along this road are a number of command points. The views from these points over the valley below and the road up to Jerusalem were stunning. Quite obviously, if you controlled these command points you could control this road and possibly the road beneath as well. Each lookout and command point had an explanation of its part in the War of Independence. And a picnic table or two. In all seriousness, it's very well set out and gives an interesting history lesson about the days around the War of Independence amid the beautiful alpine setting. After a number of these mountain-top lookouts the path started its descent to lower territory. The going was slow not because of the difficulty of the path but because of the constant stream of off-road vehicles climbing a track that is definitely not meant for vehicular traffic. If that wasn't bad enough, each car had a single occupant, a male driver. To us it seemed that it would be far more fun, social and fuel efficient if there'd been three or four people to each car, but then again, I guess we didn't feel the need to prove our masculinity by driving individually along a path meant for walking. Each to their own.

As is the case with historical, war related areas, we passed a number of memorials, each nicely set out with its obligatory picnic-table-in-the-shade, beckoning us like silent sprukers to come and rest weary limbs on its wooden bench. At the bottom of the mountain we found a particularly large and charming memorial to the Machal (Mitnadvei Chutz L'aretz, or overseas volunteers). This was one we couldn't let go, so we planted bums on benches and out came the myriad sandwiches. The six of us couldn't finish all we'd brought. Onwards out of this park, we crossed the road leading to Beit Shemesh and marched through another park. The Burma Road is just a string of interconnected picnic tables placed in pretty places. From here on in for the next seven kilomtres we had a hill or two, lots of forests, lots of commemorative plaques and lots of picnic spots. And we weren't bored for a second. Eventually we got to Neveh Shalom, the mixed Jewish and Arab village that hopes to show that we can actually live together, regretting parking the car there. We were having so much fun that we could have easily walked through the fields to the Latrun monastery.

Once again, no humus. We were too full. After a quick double macchiato at the local Segafreddo we all went our separate ways, with the hope that Mark and Rinat can do a guest appearance next time as well.

27th day (Overnight Done Right)

2010-12-24T20:40:00.000+02:00

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)

2010-12-24T20:38:00.000+02:00

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)

2010-12-10T20:37:00.000+02:00

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.

24th day (Alomg Kvish 6)

2010-11-12T20:36:00.000+02:00

I want to start with a confession - I've had enough of civilisation on my shvil.
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..

The open, featureless countryside continued on. Once we'd gotten away from the Ben-shemen area the bicyclists gave way to the rally-cross motor-bikers. Interesting how their gear is all colour co-ordinated to their bikes. Motor-cross chic. We even encountered some horse-back riders along the way. But other shvillers? Forget it. They obviously know something that we don't.

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 keyb

oard energy into complaining about today's route, but if truth be said it really wasn't that bad. It really wasn't that good either. It really wasn't too hard. It really wasn't too hilly. It was the sort of day that you have to do because it's part of the shvil (and the track is too narrow to drive ). You put a tick in the box and look forward to the next one. However we all enjoyed it so much that we'd go back next week and do it all again.
The 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.

23rd day (Grey)

2010-10-15T20:28:00.000+02:00

This chapter is going to be a bit like our last walk. Short and boring. For those readers looking for thrills, this blog won't be anywhere near as hot as the 30 plus degrees we walked through. Mid October is meant to be cool(er). We figured that a 1 p.m. midweek start would be ok. It isn't, after-all, August, is it?

After some gentle physical persuasion we were happy to welcome Tracey back into our midst after a long hiatus. The truth be told, it had been quite a while for all of us since we last walked.
After meeting Tracey at the entrance of the large Haredi town of El-ad, we drove to the starting point, the Baptist Centre. How's that for a contrast? Starting with the Baptists and finishing with the Haredis . I'm not too sure which was more foreign to us.
Who would have thought that on the head-waters of the Yarkon, between the built-up areas of Petach Tikva and Rosh Ha'Ayin, there would be a Baptist centre? More surprisingly it was here on the Yarkon and not on the Jordan river, a place far more holy to those that believe that being baptised will help them get into the next world. What? Israelis have suddenly become too tactful to point out that they're baptising in the wrong river? That's a bit hard to believe ! At any rate, that was our starting point.
It says something about the tone of the day's proceedings when the highlight of the day comes 15 minutes after we start. After a short walk along a reed lined path that brought back memories of our previous less than successful stroll along the Yarkon, we stumbled upon the Oferim Pools. This quaint little pond covered in water lilies seemed straight out of a Monet painting. A rare sight in Israel, to be sure. Peace and tranquillity, 10 minutes from the heart of Petach Tikva. The Monet fantasy was all the more complete with a group of four young girls serenely picnicking on the banks of the pond. I'm not sure that the two Israeli rock-apes, smoking, playing loud mizrachi (eastern-style) music and throwing rocks into the still pond were part of the Monet mindset, but this,after all, the middle-east , not southern turn-of-the-century France. It was one thirty already and we hadn't eaten lunch, so barely half an hour after we got out of Yoni's car we sat down in the shade of a big tree besides the lily pond and had some sandwiches.

As is often the case when you find yourself in such an idyllic place, it was hard to get up and continue with the task at hand. Someone may have even suggested that we backtrack to the car and drive the remaining 10 or so kilometres. After a long, silent pause we decided that we just couldn't look at ourselves in the mirror if we decided to drive.
After a few kilometres of flat, hot, shadeless, gravel-pathed walking we came to the entrance of the Tel Afek National Park. We'd walked past it from behind and it looked quite interesting. It is the site of the ancient city of Antipatris, built by Herod in honor of his father, Antipater II of Judea (isn't wikipedia great?). It's only natural that Shvil Yisrael would include such a monumental land mark, right? Wrong. Just as it didn't go through the Yarkon Springs National Park, next to the Baptist Centre, here too it dodges around the national park, not through it. Why? Don't know. Add it to the myriad of questions we have for Mr. Shvil Painter when we finish the shvil, sometime around 2025. Instead we walked past the abandoned, broken down Rosh Ha'Ayin train station, which looks like the perfect setting for a horror film. We also walked past the first pillbox (round sentry station shaped like a pillbox) the British built in Palestine. Whoopee!

We did see one other lone walker out on the trail, walking towards us. He looked a little older than us and had a vaguely familiar gait. We thought it was Sol, our blog pen-pal and co-walker from the first day of our previous leg. But no,it was just a guy out for a stroll, in the middle of no-where. His resemblance to Sol was a mirage, brought on by the blazing sun.
Garry and Tracey were especially under duress. Garry once again carried an injury inflicted upon him by Lea, his basketball playing daughter. One day soon he's going to have to come to the realisation that as he gets older and Lea gets bigger, he's fighting a losing battle. Tracey had trouble coping with the heat and looked very flushed. We felt bad having forced her to come back and walk with us on a day this hot.

"Grey" about sums up the walk. Grey shadeless paths past old wrecked buildings, grey shadeless paths through empty fields, grey shadeless paths next to railway tracks and grey shadeless paths next to roads, especially Kvish 6. We're not used to hearing loud traffic along the route but today, next to Israel's central highway, we had to yell just to hear each other. If on previous grey summer walks we would remind ourselves that it would look totally more appetising in the winter and spring, here we were in agreement that it would be just as flat and boring in any season, just green rather than grey. Despite all this complaining, it was great to be back on the shvil. We were a little shaken by our failure on the 2nd day of our previous leg and needed this short, less challenging section just to stretch the shvil legs again. Once again we realised that it wasn't necessarily the route but the company and the experience that makes us keep coming back to the shvil.

Heat has a tendency to take your appetite away and we finished the walk hot and not very hungry. My son Gal had the next day off from his Shnat Sherut so we picked him up on the way home. Gal is always hungry, as most 19 year olds are. His hunger was contagious, so we stopped at a slightly up-market (only slightly) Abu Abu called El Sultan, in the Bedouin village of Zarzir. The usual hummus was accompanied by a large portion of mansaf. Large, but not too large for the three meat-eaters.Finishing the day's walk in a local restaurant is another good shvil tradition that we were happy to get back to.

22nd day (Mistakes)

2010-09-17T20:26:00.000+02:00

Israel in the beginning of September is still hot.
In the past we'd planned our shvil walks to start early in order to beat the midday heat. In the past we hadn't been out in Tel Aviv till 1 a.m. before a shvil leg. First mistake.
I awoke after 8, went out and had a quiet cup of coffee and brought back double machiattos for my shvil partners. Despite the caffeine shots we were all tired after walking 18 km the previous day and going to bed late. Second mistake.
There was actually some doubt whether we would start at all since Yoni's thigh was black and sore, but the brave trooper decided to tough it out. Third mistake
Not long after 9.30 we were in the car driving towards the starting point. At 9.30 on the Saturday of Rosh Hashana, nothing is open in the city that never sleeps. We got to the Alonit convenience store at the petrol station at Neveh Yerek, close to our starting point, to discover that the 16 year old girl behind the counter didn't know how to take frozen chocolate croissants out of the freezer and turn them into baked ones. The 19 year old whose job it was to do that would only be arriving in half an hour. A bad omen. We only had chocolate Oreos to go with Garry's tea. We thought of buying some pre-packed sandwiches for the route ahead but they looked like they'd been sitting in the refrigerator section one day too many. So of we set, without having eaten any breakfast and without food for the coming day's walk. Fourth mistake.
The starting time was a bit after 10. Fifth mistake.
We at least got something right by parking the car close to the road so we wouldn't have to walk extra metres (kilometres) just to pick a car up at the end, but that was about the extent of our victories for the day.
The day's proceedings started pleasantly. The path followed the course of the Yarkon river. At the point where we joined it, at this stage of the summer, the word "river" is a misnomer. Even "creek" is probably a bit generous. A thin, green strip of barely moving water does not a river make. Still, lined by papyrus reeds it was a very idyllic country path, 15 minutes from the heart of Tel Aviv. Here and there locals sat by the banks, fishing rod in hand. I don't know if they ever catch anything and given the unpleasant green hue of the water I'm not sure that they would actually want to eat anything that they might catch. From experience, there is something calming , almost therapeutic, about fishing. There might be mockers amongst us that will call it pointless, but this is my blog and I'm sticking to it.
The other human activity we saw on the shvil was bike riding. This route, along the entire banks of the Yarkon, from its source in the Sharon to the mouth in the Tel Aviv port area is a well known bike path. Initially we too had planned to cycle the path but lack of confidence in our biking skills put paid to the idea. Sixth mistake? Perhaps not.

Walking by the river banks continued on for quite a while. Rivers, by nature, don't usually go straight. They snake along a route of nature's choosing that is eked out over thousands or millions of years. And here, on this day, for us, lies the problem. It felt like that we were walking in circles. We'd often cross the river and walk along the bank in the opposite direction that we'd been walking in. It took us what seemed forever to get to landmarks that we thought we'd get to sooner. The landscape, whilst pleasant enough, was monotonous. Almost every leg of shvil yisrael looks better in the winter, but I'm quite convinced that this leg, done in the winter, would be one of the most beautiful of the entire Israel National Trail. Yet today, in the open, baking heat, with no breakfast and no food, not enough water, not enough sleep, tired from the previous day's 18 km and one of us with a very nasty bruise, we really struggled. So what do we do when the going gets tough? We hitch a ride. Over the course of the 3 hours that we'd been walking a small number of 4*4s had passed us. When Avi and Yael approached in their Nissan Tarrano, and even stopped to ask us directions, that was it. No mistake. We asked (begged?) for a lift and they readily agreed. Air conditioning never felt so good. They were in no hurry to get anywhere and we were in no hurry to leave the air conditioning. The conversation was pleasant and as the view outside marginally changed from reeds to citrus groves we congratulated ourselves on our wisdom and good luck.. Eventually we passed from the rural agricultural area to the commercial Ramat Hachayal district that borders between Tel Aviv and Petach Tikvah. There are many restaurants in this area and If we'd still been walking we probably would have had some lunch, hopped into a taxi and called it a day. But we were in Avi and Yael's Nissan Tarrano and when they offered to drop us off at my van parked at the end we unhesitatingly agreed. As we were driving down towards the port area and my parked van we spotted a section of Park Hayarkon, Tel Aviv's sort of version of New York's Central Park. It's a large green park that runs for a few kilometres along the northern bank of the Yarkon. It's part of the shvil and looked very inviting. When one of us, perhaps out of a sense of misplaced guilt, suggested we leave the comfort of the limo service and venture back onto the shvil, the other two readily concurred. Sixth mistake. Avi and Yael looked a little puzzled, which I can certainly understand. Why would any sane person leave an air-conditioned car and chose to walk 5 kilometres in the midday heat? Especially since we'd already walked 8 or so kilometres and looked totally withered when we got picked up? Beats me, even though the decision was certainly unanimous.

To compound our mistake, we actually disembarked from the car not exactly next to the park but had to walk around in circles until we found the right way there. Add one totally unnecessary unshvil kilometre to the day's tally. There was probably another kilometre between the edge of the park itself to the white, orange and blue marked shvil path on the river bank. Park Hayarkon is very nice though. As previously said, we hadn't eaten yet today and unfortunately our hunger was amplified by the smell of all the barbecued meats that wafted over the park. Hundreds of families had decided to set up bivouac here and send a cloud of barbecue smoke into the atmosphere. Maybe Hendrix had Park Hayarkon in mind when he sang about purple haze.
By the time we made it back to the Yarkon itself we were even more tired, hot and thirsty and failed to appreciate the fact that, like many world cities that have rivers running through the middle, this strip of green in the urban landscape is something to be enjoyed. We just wanted to forget the mistakes, get back to the car and get home.

In summary it was quite ambitious to try and walk close to 40 kilomtres in a 28 hour period. Add to that all the other factors that made this leg such a struggle and I would say that all in we didn't give enough thought to that second day. Are we discouraged from doing 2 legs on a weekend? Certainly not. Next time we just have to plan it a little better.