11th day (A Stroll In The Woods)

Merry x-mas.

It's a sign that we're moving forward when the Seggafreddo at Kedarim is not a stopping point on the way to the start of a leg. Today we met in a different petrol station in a different area. We didn't even check if we could get coffee there. We didn't know it then but we really didn't need to hurry.

There was some doubt whether we were going get to walk today as Garry was carrying a basketball injury from earlier in the week. He actually tripped over the basketball and fell onto it, hurting his ribs. Bet Michael Jordan never managed that! So as long as he didn't laugh, sneeze or jump then he'd be ok. Sneezing we can't control, it was an easy walk that didn't demand any commando style jumping, but we usually do have a good laugh.

From Tzomet Hamovil (Hamovil Jct.) we drove on to the village of Mash'had and met up with Tracey who decided that she could put up with us once more, or maybe we'd decided that we could put up with her once more . Perhaps she just couldn't resist the animal magnetism of 3 middle aged men in various stages of over-weightness and baldness, or simply she was just so bored that even a day with us looks like a good time. At any rate, it was nice to have her along again.

Since we all live in the Galil and going through an Arab village is about as interesting and exciting as watching grass grow, we decided to drive through Mash'had and start walking when the village gives way to forest. Having said that, Mash'had is much cleaner and well kept than the run down villages in our immediate vicinity, but as Yoni pointed out, that really isn't very hard. I was of the opinion that the village was still part of the shvil so we could have walked at least through part of it but I was outvoted 3 to 1.

So once again we parked the car in an ad hoc garbage dump that seems to be at the edge of every Arab village, rolled our eyes, clicked our tongues , crinkled our noses at this offence to our western sensibility, and set off. The village ended in a very pretty pine forest that unfortunately wasn't spared the cultural view that garbage can be dumped anywhere that isn't in my house, but after a few minutes it was just us and nature.

This pine forest  descended into a small valley that we would walk through for the next while. Very pastoral. A lush green valley surrounded by forest, the houses of the community settlement of Hoshi'a on one side of the valley and at the mouth of the valley some distant hills. It goes without saying that there were, of course, cows feeding in this meadow. We passed the back gate of Hoshi'a, turned left and walked towards the settlement of Tzippori. Modern day Tzippori sits adjacent to the ruins of the ancient city of Tzippori, seat of the Sanhedrin. This site is so important to the history of the Jewish people in Israel that the education ministry dictates that every Jewish school pupil must visit the site at some point in his schooling.  Since we finished school a few years ago already and the path doesn't actually go through the historical site and I think we have all been at some point to the very impressive ruins, we didn't go in. The shvil did however go past the grave of the Rabbi Yehuda HaNassi, one of the more important figures of that period.

We'd been walking for all of an hour and a bit when we felt that our sandwiches were weighing our bags down so we stopped to have some of Garry's herbal tea, croissants and sandwiches. Ahh, it's a hard life, but someone's gotta do it. Now that we were rested and the food was weighing our stomachs rather than our bags down we re-started up a hill. A hill, not a mountain like the previous walk. A bit steep, but even Yoni and his new-found whinging partner didn't complain too much. If truth be said, I think Yoni led the charge up the hill. A first time for everything.

And so we ambled on. When we weren't walking through forest we walked through open meadows, the grass wet with morning dew, which in turn soaked our feet but left the rest dry. It appears that we weren't the first ones to notice that this leg is a very relaxed one, after the Swiss Alps that we negotiated last time. Even the shvil maker had his shabbat day off today. There were places where the way was so obvious that they didn't really make a path to follow. Sort of "get to the other end of the field and you'll know where to go". A marking here and there. In the beginning of the walk the shvil marker must have left his blue paint at home because we had white and orange markings without the blue. This continued on while the shvil marker's assistant ran home to find the blue paint he'd forgotten under his bed. Eventually he got back with the blue paint, but in keeping with today's easy going attitude, he didn't go back and repaint the bits that were just orange and white. If the shvil painter and his assistant had been Australian they probably would have said something like "no worries, mate".

The forest changed from K.K.L planted pine forests to natural oak. Actually there's a plague that's killing off the conifers in the Middle East. It started in Turkey and has spread through Lebanon and is making its way south through Israel. It was quite evident today. Patches of pines and cedars that were dead or dying. For Israel it's not actually such a bad thing. The J.N.F planted lots of these trees in the past because they're hardy and quick growing but they prevent the regrowth of the natural oak. If the planted pines die off this will allow the natural forest to grow back.

So after a little more than 2 hours of easy relaxed walking on a superb sunny winter's day, through green valleys, open meadows and forests, we found the petrol station where the car was parked. We decide to leave the marked shvil path and make our way directly to the petrol station. This was all fine and good but it meant us having to negotiate a couple of barbed wire fences. Remember, Yoni and barbed wire don't go together, or more correctly, go together too much. Finally, after all these years of walking, Yoni seems to be getting the hang of getting through barbed wire unscathed.

The only question left to answer was would El-tanur be open this early? Remember last time this gourmet Arab restaurant  was closed for the Muslim holiday of Id-el-Atchah. On the Christian holiday of Christmas there was no such problem. The salads, local wild greens, and most importantly stuffed lamb shoulder was there waiting for us when we got there.

P.S. A word about the book. Over the course of these past 10 months there have been a few times when I've doubted the authenticity or reliability of the book. Today just takes the cake. Today's leg is stated as 13 km. We drove about 2 km through Mash'had, leaving 11 km of walking. We tend to walk quite quickly but not so quickly that we can cover 11 km in 2 1/2 hours. The last leg was rated as of medium difficulty, including the first part straight up Mt. Tabor which we didn't do. Perhaps if you're a 21 year old who just finished the army then it may be a medium difficulty walk. But here's the rub. Today's walk was also rated as medium difficulty. My 91 year old grandmother wouldn't have found this a medium difficulty walk, barring perhaps the one hill that Yoni ran up. This leads me to the conclusion that the author of the book wrote it from the comfort of his study, aided by an old 1:50,000 contour and path map and skilled use of Google Earth.