Shvilist

I started early and climbed to the Samara ruins, Then headed back to the river bank – where the trail continues for about a Km, before turning north again – along the rail tracks. Here the road is soft sand, which makes it difficult to walk (might be fun if I didn’t carry a backpack and walked barefooted. As it were, it was quite a strenuous walk) to your right, across the tracks,  you see a better  road – but the INT takes its time, and doesn’t cross the tracks – until you reach a water passage which goes beneath the track. Since it’s not the first crossing along the INT, I knew that this would be the case – I just didn’t imagine that the water passage will be about half a meter tall. I truely don’t know what the INT planners were thinking to themselves, but obviously no one ever goes through that tunnel, despite the signs which specifically tells you not to go over the railway.

The map shows a lake nearby, in which waterbirds are supposed to be nested. As I approached all I saw was fields. A shepherd on the way told me that in the winter of 1992 a lake was created there – but since then it is long gone. More than that – this ground is privately owned,  so they cannot declare that it is a nature reserve…..

The trail goes into Hadera forest, reaches Hadera itself, then crosses highway #2 and continues in Givat Olga. Turning north again, you walk towards the power plant which sits on top of the polluted Hadera stream. You have to cross this stream, and since I had no desire to enter this particular stream, I climbed on the highway (which crosses the stream on a bridge) and walked along it’s edge.

Back on the INT, you walk a rather non interesting road,  encircle kibbuts Sdot Yam, and reach the ancient Caesarea – which is especially famous for the great harbor which Herod built (at around 10 B.C.) and the amphi theater which is still active to this very day (though today we only have artists, and not gladiators….). Since I already been in this site, I didn’t enter it this time, but rather carried on along the beach – towards the village of Jisr az-Zarqa. This is one of the most beautiful parts of the coastline, with the roman aquaduct from one side and the sea on the other. It was twilight as I arrived, and since I didn’t want to sleep on the beach, I crossed the village and camped in a field on the other side of the highway.

The trail goes northward along the coast line, but even on the beach you find ancient ruins.The first historical site is  the remains of the crusader’s fort in Herzelia (Apollonia).Apollonia (that’s the roman name. The ancient city was called Arsuf) was a city which was settled for 1600 years (6th century B.C till 1265, when it was razed by the sultan Baibars, In his fights with the knights hospitallers.

The trail climbs up the low hills near Ga’ash, bypassing the nude beach, then passes through Natania’s coastline, then to Neurim beach, Beit Yanai beach – and then you leave the coastline and go along Alexander river into Hadera forest.

Most of the coastline is low cliffs, with a few meters of beach from the cliffs to the sea.

Since I didn’t want to sleep by the sea , i started walking along the river after sunset, and camped near the ruins of samara’s house – a 100 years old building, which belong to a wealthy merchant who owned this lands – until he sold them to the JNF.

I returned to the exact spot from which i stopped, and continued along the Yarkon river – all the way to Tel Aviv. The river is a few meters wide at best of places, and it’s path is marked by the single line of trees which grows on its banks – well, for most of the way. Besides those trees you have fields or buildings. The trail passes near Ayalon mall, enters the Yarkon park in T.A., then goes northward for a few Km in the city itself, and reaches Tel Baruch beach. You go north, pass the Arena mall (two malls in a single day – the INT planners must have thought about shopaholics when they decided on that path…). Pass the arena, and you reach Herzelia beach. I carried on for a few Km, and then went to visit another friend of mine (getting used again to having showers on a daily basis…..)

As I was getting up and getting ready for the day, a Lt. Col. approached – telling me politely that the trail is 500 meters to the west. I actually was glad that someone did notice that i entered a military zone, and wondered how come no one came to tell me to get out before half past six – but obviously I said no such thing to him….

The trail crosses road #6, into Shoham’s grove (named Bareket forest in the map. Well, it’s way too small to be called a forest, and the sign in it called it shoham. The marking in this region are not so good, and I lost them a little after the trail enters Shoham industrial area. Since it is constantly parallel to road #6,  you can’t really get lost – just have to find the right place to cross the highway in order to get back to the trail. I found a suitable water passage for that purpose (among the things I learned from the INT planners – always go under the highways). The trail enters Elad’s grove (again – the naming of this place as forest is optimistic at best), to Alexandroni’s memorial . Alexandori brigade was one of the four Palmach brigades, and it  took part in our war for independence. It is still active, as a reserve force, manned by Golani’s warriors.

Then The trail goes to the archeological pearl-of-the-day – a 2000 years old building, which served as a burial place for many individuals throughout the years – basically each major religion buried there someone important (or at least – claimed that it’s the burial place of that someone). I know of the christian celebrity which supposedly buried here : John the Baptist. But I also know that it served as a tomb long before John, and many others were buried there (or at least claimed to be buried there).  And so it remained intact for all of these years, and it is the only structure in Israel which is still standing today, 2000 years after it was first built, without any reconstructions. The don’t build buildings like that anymore …

The trail goes almost directly northwards, to Aphek nature reserve (see the Hebrew brochure).
In ancient times there were several major routes in Israel. One of them was “The sea route”  – Via maris, which followed the coast line from egypt (heliopolis) to Israel, and then to Syria (Demascus). In Aphek exists a flowing fountain – which creates the Yarkon river. This river created swamps in the entire region from Aphek westward (today, on this swamp land are the cities of Petah Tikva, Ramat Gan, Hod Hasharon, Tel Aviv, and Herzelia). The flow was so strong, that it was practically impossible to cross it – especially not with a merchant’s caravan. And so this ancient route passed through this region (today it’s in Rosh Ha’ain), and since you have the Shomron hills on the east and the swamp to the west – it was a great location for building a post, which grew into a city which is mentioned in the bible. When Egypt ruled over  Palestine, the ruler’s palace was here – one of the oldest palaces in Israel. About 1000 years later, the Romans (I think it was Herod) built a roman city (called Antipatris) on top of that. The crusaders,1000 years later,  built a fort  on top of this palace, and the fort’s walls still stand proudly today.

From that ancient place, the trail follows the Yarkon river, nowadays a mere shadow of it’s past glory (most of the water are piped and delivered as drinking water), and I followed it till Petach Tikva, where a friend of mine picked me up.

The day started with a visit to the crusader’s fort in Latrun, and then to the Tegart fort – which used to be a British police station during the british mandate, especially remembered for two events prior to 48 : the first one is the escape of 20 Lehi fighters which crawled to their freedom through a 76 meters long tunnel in 1943. The second event took place in June, 1946 – operation Agatha, better known as “the black Saturday” – following the “nights of the bridges” – in which eleven bridges were sabotaged (well, only ten actually. The one over Kziv stream remained intact due to early exposure of the saboteurs) . During this operation, about 2700 people were captured by the British police, and were imprisoned – both in Rafiah, Atlit and in Latrun. This operation led to bombing in Kind david hotel in Jerusalem – and after that we decided to stop the rebel against the british, and focus on international pressure – which eventually two years later, yielded our independence.

Nowadays you have the armored corps memorial site and museum in Latrun, and among the many displays there I would like to mention the lookout over the battle of Emmaus -  which took place in 165 B.C. (maybe it was 166. Don’t remember – it was long time ago… ) which was the third battle that Judas Maccabeus (יהודה המכבי) fought against the Greek army, during the Hasmonean rebellion. a detailed site with many, many interesting details could be found here. unfortunately, I do not know of an English version of this site.

On the road again, I marched north through the fields – to JNF planted groves, to some ruins (nothing of real interest to see there – at least not that I know of.

The INT enters Ben Shemen forest, to Modi’in observatory (I didn’t climb it), then to Tel Hadid (see :  Hebrew site),which was an ancient settlement – and carries on northward, between Adam reservation – which is a military zone and the new highway (road #6 ). since i didn’t want to sleep too close to the highway, and the reservation’s fence is practically non existent in several places – And I know this place well from my military service – I entered  a waiting shed in one of the firing ranges, and camped there for the night.

I reached the settlement Even sapir (=a sapir rock), which lies right by Hadasa Ein Carem, Jerusalem – and carried on hiking. The route goes  from Handak fountain to the Sataf fountain, then to Limon fountain – and then connetcs to Kislon stream – an easy 4×4 track, on which many bicycle riders roam. Then you climb again – to Carmila mountain (I have no idea who was this Carmila person), Then you go to Hamasrek reservation, where the route connects to Hamishlatim path. Mishlat is a military post, placed on a high ground, and during our war for independence (1947-1948), many battles took place on this road.

The road to Jerusalem (now Israel’s number one highway) passes in the wadi belows. in November 29th, 1947, the british mandate in Palestine ends. On 30.11.1947, a bus going from Natania to jerusalem was hit by snipers, which used this location as their base – practically cutting off the supplies to Jerusalem, and thus starting the siege – no food or water, supplies or people were alloud in or out. In May 7th, 1948 Herel division (part of the Palmach, which will become the I.D.F.  ) Began operation “Maccabi” (named after maccabi mutzri, a Palmach officer which was killed a month earlier, trying to protect the trucks which carried supplies to Jetusalem) – an operation during which , after many heroic battles, these posts were captured, and Burma path was opened – thus ending the siege.

I remember studying this operation as a young boy,  in highschool. Here, once again, I found the difference between knowing and understanding : standing on these posts you have a clear view of each and every car going to or from the city. Most of my military service was behind a desk, and I was never trained to storm up military posts, But even I could understand the importance of these locations, could imagine how six warriers, armed with machine guns and rifles, could hold this place for days. I wish that the schools will start making field trips – I do believe that studying the Maccabi operation here, where it took place, would be much more effective, and will be a memorable experience for the pupils.

The Mishlatim path connects to Burma path – which is the path that was designed adn used to smuggle supplies to the besieged city. It reaches Latrun – a crusaders fort, than a monastry (which is active to this days). I camped for the night near the fort’s ruins.

Azeka was a biblical town, one of the cities which Joshua conquered (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azekah). It is better remembered as the gathering place of the Philistines army, a place from which Goliath climbed down each morning for forty days, and challenged the Israelites to choose a champion who will fight him. In the times when the people believed that the fights are being determined my the gods, this sort of challenges were common: instead of having a full-army-fight, and have many good people get killed – let’s give the gods a vessel they could fight with – and the winner of the duel will symbol the winning of the entire fight. A very human way for fighting, I say.

So the philistines gathered in Azeka, and the Israelites gathered in Shocha mountain – south-westward from Azeka. This means that each morning, when Goliath climb down to the valley, he had the sun in his eyes (a fact which is not mentioned in the bible, and that the light feeted David was able to take advantage of). On the other hand, he came fully armoured (he had great great copper-plate armor) think of how his figure glittered when he shouted accross the valley, inviting the other side to choose someone, anyone, who will be willing to face him.

I climbed Azeka right before dawn, and gazed upon the valley with first light. I wish I could post here the pictures which I’ve seen – but unfortunately my camera doesn’t capture well a fight which happened 3000 years ago… especially not when faced the rising sun. On the way up, the JNF placed pillars on which biblical verses were inscribed (all taken from 1 Samuel, 17, which is the chapter in which this fight is described – שמואל א, יז.) Though not all of them are in good condition (some needs repairs) they do get you into the right atmosphere – and buy the time I reached the top, I was able to feel the philistines aroung me, and see David and Goliath fighting, down below. So this was the climax of the archeological jurney which I had yesterday. In this site there are also caves in which Bar-kochva’s warriers hid in their rebbelion against the Romans – but I had my fill of history for that time, so I didn’t visit them.

Should you choose to visit them, do be careful  – a friend of mine fell into one – a 15 meters drop. Not the preferable way to end your trip….

Anyway – The trail climbs down into the valley of Elah, which nowadays is covered with fields (wheat, if i recall correctly) Then it continues on low hills (it started raining so again – I don’t have any photos, this time due to more earthly reasons) and connects to ceasar’s path – a path which was paved in 130 A.D. from Ashkelon to Jerusalem, in honour of Adrianus. One of the things that the roman took care of is water supply to the  passengers on their roads – and there is a water hole, which was active till the 60′ (!!!) from that time.  (then we paved the road, and the stream which used to fill this hole was  diverted). The path reaches Hanut ruins, from which you climb down to Matta fountain.

The path here twists arounds settlements – and you can feel the effort put in the planning of the route, in order to avoid the urban areas.
Over the past 3000 years, people searched these hills – and wherever they saw a green tree, they cut it down, dug a hole – and found water. The result is about 2000 (maybe more. I didn’t count)  different fountains and water holes in the vicinity of Jerusalem.

So the next worth mentioning location is Ein misla (Ein = fountain), which marks the begining of Begin Park – where you hike  to Ein Kobi – a place where I met a nice group of teenagers, which set out to have a BBQ in the nature. They were just about to finish, so I arrived in perfect timing : they gave me no less than three full plates, and told me that each and every thing that i won’t eat – will be thrown away.

Fully stuffed, I continued to Kobi stream – a tiny (though quite steep) stream, which I think is the most beautiful place in this area. It’s upper part is paved, making the hiking much easier (they knew that I’ll need an easy track after so much meet. how considerate of them ). You then enter Rephaim wadi (the literal translation of Rephaim is ‘ghosts’, but acording to the legend, it was also the name of the tribe who lived here in ancient times, before the Judean tribe settled here)

The trail connects to the fountain’s way (“שביל המעיינות”) – on which I hiked in twighlight time, and reached Jerusalem after dark.

The day started in Tel Lachish, one of the oldest cities in Israel – the earliest finding from it are dated to the neolithic era – 4000 – 7500 B.C. Sennacherib destroyed it at around 700 B.C. – and you can see to this very day the ramp which he built in order to get to the city walls. I found it absolutely amazing that almost each and every tourist arriving in Israel visits Mesada, and sees the roman ramp, while here you have a ramp which is 800 years older, and I’ll be surpized if a single percent of our tourists are aware of it’s existence. BTW, for those who didn’t remember the name -  Sennacherib is the guy who destroyed the kigdom of Israel (the ten tribes, which became lost after his war).
see also : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lachish

After an hour-long tour to the ancient city, I climbed down and continued to Maresha stream, which led the way to Tel Maresha (another ancient city) and the caves of Beit Govrin – the ground here is composed from soft rocks, which were mined by the people of Maresha (and later of Beit Govrin, which was built on top of Maresha). you can also find there impressive burial caves and a roman amphitheater.
see also : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleutheropolis

Then the trail continues to Tel Goded (another settlement which was active in the 1st millenia B.C – till Bar Kochva rebellion (the second Judean uprising under the rule of the romans – 132-135 A.D.), where an impressive tunnel system was dug in this area, in which the warriers hid from the roman soldiers.

The trail enters Britain park – a JNF planted forest, which was funded by the jewish community of Britain, sometimes in the fifties. you reach Masua observatory, from which you can see (in a clear day, which – unfortunately for me – i didn’t have) all the way to the sea. You pass several ruins on the way – Shiklon, for example is a very nice place, though I know almost nothing about it…

Then the trail carries on to Tel Azekah – another biblical town, and near it i camped for the night.

The weather forecast warned of a heat wave – and they were right. The tempratures climbed up – and by noon it was about 42 Celsius. Only once on the trail it was that hot – in Paran river, right before Vardit canyon. But In the desert there is no humidity, and so you’re constantly dry, and the heat doesn’t bother all that much. Here, on the other hand – I was constantly wet. I drank about 8 litters of water (i’m not kidding no exaggerating.I counted bottles) considering the fact that I started the day with only three, and I did not reach any tap on the way, Its a fact i’m quite proud of – lots of people on the way gave me water. and not just one cup, they gave me whole bottles. As I said – you get to meet the better part of our people on the way.

The day started with a farmer passing by my tent (about 6 a.m.  – we switched to summer saving time, so this means just after dawn. I’m never gonna be a farmer if it means waking up so early each and every morning….. ) Then I walked for about 7 km to Pura nature reserve – i’ve seen the sign pointing to this reserve many,many times (it’s near the main road leading to the south) but I never stopped to take a look – so this was a very pleasent surprize for me, for this reserve is very beautiful, combining both nature scenes (there’s a little pond where Pura stream gets wider – The ottomans built a dam for that pond to exist, a planted grove at Pura stream and many wild flowers, and there’s the impressive Sid canyon) as well as historical sites – starting with a 100 years old bridge (the Ottomans built a railroad over Pura stream. Unfortunately, in order to power their train they needed wood – and so they cut down each and every forest which existed in Israel and going to the 4500 years old Tel Nagila (easily recognized for the magnificant tamarist tree on top of it.

It may be due to the intense heat, but this is the only place where I spotted two hyenas, which are usually extremely shy creatures. This is another advantage to hiking alone – you make less noise, enabling you to spot many more animals.

From the Pura reserve the trail goes east, through wheat fields towards Tel Lachish, but I deviated once again and explored the Semech nature reserve – and for once I agree with those who planned the path of the INT and chose not to include this reserve. There’s nothing of real interest to see there. I reached Tel Lachish at twilight, and camped there for the night.

I returned to Meitar, to the exact spot where I last stopped. The trail follows the pre-67 border, along the security fence. It climbs mount Sansana (another nice JNF-planted grove over there) and reaches a carob tree (מסתבר שזה השם הלועזי של חרוב). Why do I bother to mention this? First of all, there are not many tree which are specifically mentioned on the maps (though there are more – but usually not in forested areas….). Secondly this specific tree has a story to tell : in 1948, when the original borders of the state-to-be were set, the border in this region was more or less a straight line one the map from Ein Gedi (which lies on the banks of the dead sea) to – you guessed right – this very tree.

From this tree the trail continues to Kibbutz Lahav, to Joe Alon center ( http://www.joealon.org.il/english/eng_home.htm ) . The center has a nice museum (the bedouin heritage museum) as well as a watch tower with an observatory – and if you’re lucky, a guide will give explenations and tell some stories about this area. Very interesting.

The trail continues to Ga’at hills – nothing really interesting there, save for several nice flowers. Then the trail goes along the road, though there are ancient ruins (Za’ak) and a nice grove (Dvir forest) which the trail, without any good reason, skips. Unfortunately for me, I naively believed that it does so with a good reason, and so i missed those  sites. Oh well – I’ll have to go back there. Wait for the post

Near Dvir (which, for some reason is named Dvira in my map) I met several famillies who celebrated passover by setting out to the nearest camp site – and have a BBQ. The invite me to join them, and true to my moto – I did.

Most people mix  being alone and being lonely – and I deiscovered that this mix leads to a great ice breaker when it comes to meet people – and I met new people on a daily basis. I am proud and delighted to say that there are still good and warm people in this country – many, many of them – unlike the pictures you might be getting from the media.

Anyway, the road goes along Shikma stream – a tiny(about 15 meters wide) patch of natural reserve between plowed fields.  Somewhere along this road my daylight ended, and so I stopped for the night on the road (and now I finally had a tent to sleep in it… what a luxury!)