This morning, as usual, at breakfast we packed our lunch in the dining room and left Kibbutz Hakuk – although here they expected you to do that and provided lunch rolls, fillings and bags.  The accommodation may have been pretty basic – and the dining room flooded with school kids – but the staff were friendly and it met our needs. (That said, we might try a hotel room again next time…)

Today looked like being our easiest day so far – and so it proved although, particularly for the first two or three hours, we walked in rain, and the amount of thick mud that stuck to our boots was at times ridiculous. So were the lack INT trail markings….

Rafi and Ronnie had waterproof trousers, I didn’t, an error I’ll correct next time.  On the first day Ronnie hadn’t worn them, much to his regret when he found he had only one pair of trousers with him and had to borrow a pair of mine whilst washing his when we went to Avi’s for dinner last night. The mud was so thick on my walking trousers each day it was a huge effort to clean them up each evening for the next morning.  But enough of the housework…

We dropped a car at Yardenit, a baptismal site just where the River Jordan leaves the Kinneret and, early in the day, it was already crowded with groups from around the world preparing to be (re-)baptised.  They wore white robes and it was striking how much it meant to them to be undergoing the ceremony in what was to them such a special place.

Yardenit is not on actually on the Jesus Trail from Nazareth to Capernaum, but Christian pilgrims come to walk that too, and we did come across it for several kilometres of our walk this time, around the Arbel Cliffs and Migdal.  It is a 65-kilometre hiking trail in the Galil which connects important sites from the life of Jesus as well as other historical and religious sites.

We drove back along the Kinneret to start our trek and left the petrol station in Tiberius Illit and walked an easy path through the Switzerland Forest.  The Red Guide said we would walk all day with magnificent views of the Kinneret to our left – but the rain and mist obscured them pretty effectively for most of the first two hours.

We saw birds heading north for the spring (notable by its absence at that point), and several Rock Hyrax staring inquisitively at us.

The butterflies were still around in droves – although wisely not trying to do too much flying. It was only in retrospect that I found out from Eyal Greenberg, CEO of our biotech R&D facility in Netanya, that for two weeks each year millions of Painted Lady butterflies pass through Israel on their way from Africa to Europe.  Most go to Turkey, Greece and Southern Europe, but some travel as far as the arctic circle and around 10 million to the UK (30 million make the return trip). It can be a round trip migration of up to 14,000 kilometres or 9,000 miles, and it takes six generations of butterfly to make it, travelling up to 100 miles a day!  Simply extraordinary!

We left the cycle path we had been following and started to walk along some very muddy farm tracks.  Heavy walking but still pretty flat and the flowers, the trees and increasingly, as the cloud cleared and the Kinneret and Golan appeared, the views were just magical.

As we neared the Southern tip of the lake, we started our descent with a brief stop for lunch before reaching sea level (that is, Sea of Galilee level, 200m below actual sea level).  After a period of good signage the trail markers again disappeared for a while, but it was clear we needed to turn right to reach Yardenit and we found ourselves walking through Kinneret,  a settlement established in 1908 alongside a training farm – Kinneret Farm – the settlement under the sponsorship of Baron Edmund de Rothschild and the farm of the Palestine Bureau of the Zionist Organisation.  The projects were of great importance in initiating the Kvutza communal settlements, such as Degania Alef, Kibbutzim, starting with Ein Harod and Moshavim, starting with Nahalal – all started by pioneers trained at Kinneret Farm.

Indeed, incredibly, Kinneret and the activity of Berl Katznelson lay at the heart of:

• The kvutza type of communal settlement
• Degania Alef, the first kvutza, est. 1909 by pioneers trained at Kinneret Farm
• The kibbutz type of communal settlement
• Ein Harod, the first kibbutz, est. 1921 by pioneers trained at Kinneret Farm
• The moshav type of communal settlement
• Nahalal, the first moshav, est. 1921 by pioneers trained at Kinneret Farm
• The women’s rights movement in pre-state Israel
• Beit Ha’almotor Havat Ha’almot agricultural training farm for women, active 1911-1917 at Kinneret Farm
• The first assembly of women farmers (1914)
• HaMashbir cooperative for the sale of affordable food during World War I, est. 1916
• Tnuva cooperative for milk and dairy products, est. 1926
• Solel Boneh construction company, est. 1921; emerged from the Work Battalion
• Bank Hapoalim workers’ bank, est. 1921
• kupat holim public health care system
• Haganah paramilitary organisation: at the 2nd assembly of the Ahdut HaAvoda party held at the Farm in 1920, the agenda included the founding of the Haganah

The Farm residents also had a major role in establishing and shaping the Histadrut labor union of pre-state Israel.

So far as we could tell by comparison with a sign showing an old photograph of the settlement in 1908, all the original homes were there, plus some others filling in spaces between them, and the quiet atmosphere just a few dozen yards from two busy roads was striking. Unfortunately the small museum (in the former local hospital) and the town hall were closed, but they, the house where many settlers sheltered in the 1929 Arab Riots and other historic sites were marked with blue signs.

We then passed to the east of the village, across the road from the restored Kinneret Farm, the historic Kinneret Cemetry where many pioneers and leaders of the Labour movement are buried, among them Berl Katznelson, Nachman Syrkin, Rachel Bluwstein (“Rachel” the famous Hebrew-language poet from pre-state Israel, Ber Borochov, Moses Hess, Avraham Herzfeld and Shmuel Stoller. The first grave was dug in 1911 for Menahem Shmueli (Mamashi).

By early afternoon we had arrived at Yardenit again at the end of our three days’ of treking the Shvil and made our way back to Tiberius Illit to collect the car.  We had a farewell drink, Ronnie added his thoughts to the Shvil Log in the small supermarket and we parted company until our next trip scheduled for May. .

I decided to take the opportunity of finishing early and the improved weather to go back to Yesha fort to see the irises.  Driving back – 45 minutes of fast driving – I realised how far we had come, but I was out of luck. Despite the guidance of the lady who ran the vineyards at Yiftah to the spot she had seen them a couple of weeks earlier, they had all finished flowering.  But perhaps it was for the best; I’ll try and arrange for Ruth and I to see them together next year.  The trip was not wasted – the other flowers and the views were spectacular, and with them in mind I started the trip back to Herzliya.

Today dawned a perfect walking day – the weather was in the high teens, sunny without much wind, warm in the sun and cool in the shade.  We expected a relatively straight-forward day but for a stiff climb up the Arbel cliffs, and left the car at a petrol station in Tiberias Illit before going back to pick up the INT where we had left it, a kilometre or two down the road from Kibbutz Hakuk.

We all wore our new Shvil T-shirts, and very smart I thought we looked too.

We continued to follow the Amud stream, but by now we were out of the gorge and in sight of the Kinneret; and whilst we still criss-crossed the stream four times as it meandered towards the lake. It flowed gently and we were walking an easy straight-ish path.

The flowers grew in profusion, and we started to notice large numbers of butterflies, and later caterpillars – a phenomenum that grew over the next two days.  There were distant views of the Arbel Cliffs (with the Horns of Hittin beyond), at times shining green and brown in the sun and at times looking grey and forbidding in the shade of the gathering clouds. Fields and orchards started to appear as we approached the bottom of the rift valley – as well as new homes being built with views to the lake.  We chatted to the builders.   The homes lay below Migdal where Rafi’s cousin and his accountant have holiday homes with great views over the Kinneret to the Golan.

At one stage we were almost overwhelmed by the incredibly powerful jasmine-like smell of orange blossom (could have been Pomelo) from an orchard we walked through, and there were mangos and other fruits as we approached the entrance to the settlement of Migdal and reached the banks of the Kinneret itself – or at least Road 90 running along its shore.  It was encouraging to see the lake was larger than when I last saw it.  The past three months have seen high rainfall and the Kinneret is higher than it has been in at least five years, increasing in depth over the winter by around 3 or 4 metres with a metre or more still to come – which given its gradually sloping shoreline significantly increases the size of the lake.

I stopped at a store on Road 90 to buy some disposable razors (having forgotten to pack one), and then we started to walk south west through a mango orchard towards the Arbel Cliffs – the climb looking more daunting as we approached.  The INT here runs parallel to Road 90 towards a Bedouin village, Hamam.  Originally built for Mizrachi refugees, and pretty run down, the inhabitants of a number of Arab villages were subsequently moved there and have transformed it.

The grass and flowers were wet, chest high and the path muddy; it made for a damp walk. But at the village we turned left into the Arbel National Park where the cliffs loomed above us dotted with caves. After a break for a snack started our ascent.  We were a bit concerned about time and Rafi suggested we aim to complete the ascent in an hour and a quarter.

At first the path was a well maintained zig zag path up an increasingly steep hill – enough to make you breathless but straight forward.  However it was relentless and as we climbed it made sense to stop occasionally to catch our breath and to admire the view.  It was magnificent.  We could see Hamam spread out before us and you could see it was a village of good homes with a new school, a new mosque and other signs of apparently well-earned prosperity.  We heard the midday call to prayer ring out over the valley and could look beyond the village to see end of the Amud gorge and,  further to the right, the northern Kinneret and the Golan heights as far as Gamla and Mount Rabin beyond.  The scenery was breath-taking.

Looking back to the looming cliffs above, we saw the very steep meadow-like climb ending abruptly in sheer rocky cliffs rising up to another 110 metres vertically (the only place in Israel you can base jump), covered in flowers and looking like the largest dry stone wall and vertical rockery you could ever imagine.

Dug into the mountain itself are a number of cave dwellings, expanded from natural caves. There are documented Jewish cliff dwellings dating back to the Second Temple, and the fortification walls protecting some of them are from the 17th century and were built by Ali Bek, son of the Druze emir Fakhr ad-Din al-Ma’ani.

Josephus writes about how Herod the Great, with the help of Roman soldiers, defeated some of the last rebels who supported the Hasmonean king Antigonus and had taken refuge in the Arbel cliffs.  They lowered soldiers in baskets by ropes from the cliff top to kill the Jewish Zealot defenders

The caves on the steep northern side were reused in the Ottoman period by the Druze Ma’ani dynasty to create the cave castle known as Qal’at Ibn Ma’an.

After a quick look at the sites we started the serious business of climbing the near vertical cliff face.  Fortunately the better weather meant we did not have the mud and slippery rock issues we had in the Amud gorge the previous day, but there was a seriously long drop and the galvanised rings hammered into the cliff at particularly challenging sections, whilst essential, did not dispel the occasional bout of vertigo as we continued the climb to arrive – eventually – at the top precisely one and a quarter hours after we started.

We stopped for lunch by a reservoir at the top, admiring the view, and chatting to an American and Argentine couple we later saw again at dinner, before setting off for what Rafi assured us was a quick two kilometre final leg to the car.  Some two Kilometres!  The trail to Tiberias Illit took the best part of two hours!  But it was not difficult walking and we continued to marvel at the number of caterpillars and – elusive to photograph – butterflies we saw.  There were clouds of butterflies – rising from the path at every step, and it was hard to avoid treading on the multitude of caterpillars.  I probably drove Rafi

and Ronnie a bit crazy as I kept stopping to admire them.

Eventually, we arrived at the car at around 3:30pm and had a congratulatory beer.  The Red Guide said that the mini market at the petrol station kept a logbook in which ‘shvilists’ could make an entry.  I asked for the logbook and was handed 4 or 5 random exercise books, neatly bound and numbered.  The latest volume was 29.  Most entries were in hebrew,  but some were in English, remarking on the journey, practical issues and life in general.  I made an entry for the three of us and we made our way back to Kibbutz Hakuk.

That evening we were all still tired and chose an early dinner at Avi’s in the centre of downtown Tiberius.  The town looked to be a bit smarter than last time I was visited – there is a new and dynamic mayor who is making an impact – and there are certainly enough Christian tourists touring the Galil to improve the economy, as well as a significant growth in the Charedi population.

The food at Avi’s was excellent.  I had a huge Israeli salad selection as a starter – enough for the three of us (especially as Rafi and Ronnie had soup as well) – and then we had two entrecotes and a fillet steak between us – the fillet was huge!  Avi is a giant of a man and has owned and run the restaurant for 43 years; he was a perfect host.  Definitely worth a repeat visit…

It felt a very early 4:20 am start as I had only arrived in Israel and packed for the Shvil the night before.  It was also an unpleasant surprise to wake to rain which, based on the forecast on my phone, I had not anticipated.

I’m still refining the list of what to take when I hike (and I also need to find a way of actually remembering to take everything that is on the list).  I’ve also concluded I need a complete set of kit in Israel as trying to remember which bits are in Israel and which in London, and what to take from one country to the other each time, is plainly beyond me.  In any event I did not have a full set of wet weather gear – something I need to correct based on the experience of the next three days…

On arrival at Ronnie’s I handed out the Shvil printed T-shirts I had ordered and which we decided to wear the following day.  Then we were off on our two-car trick, dropping my Eldan Hire Car – a Citroen C3 – near Kibbutz Hakuk at the end of the Nahal Amud Park and driving on in Rafi’s Forester to Meron, where we had finished our hike a few weeks earlier.  We stopped only for breakfast and to buy a sandwich lunch at Roladin in Rosh Pinna.  The staff were as ever delightful, and the place had become a favourite.

By 9.10 am we were on the trail and the rain, though not heavy, came in occasional showers.  Of course, at this point I found I did not have my walking pole.  I was sure I had brought it, but could not find it in the C3 when we left it.  A pity as Nahal Amud was a day that poles would prove their worth…  Luckily Ronnie – who had previously looked askance at poles – had become a convert and bought two top of the line poles; I would end up borrowing one.

The first couple of kilometres or so were easy walking.  A gentle downward path beside the Meron and later Amud streams.  But, it gave us a false sense of security and optimism the day would be easy; in fact it was to be far from it.  Also, whilst walking we picked up the first alert that a rocket from Gaza had hit a home north of Tel Aviv injuring 7, and shortly afterwards heard that thousands of reservists had been mobilised.  Sobering.

On the trail that whole day we met only one person, early on, a woman teacher who was walking part of the Upper Nahal Amud to check out that it was a suitable hike for her class. It was up to the Sekhvi pools (though the climb out of the gorge there and a little further on near Ein Koves  and Safed – the only places until Road 85 it is possible to get out – is 500m of pretty steep scrambling), but after that things got trickier.

The Nahal Amud gorge is in places narrow and rocky with steep sides.  It is split between the Upper Nahal Amud (after we had walked 12km or so) and the Lower Nahal Amud by Road 85 (crossed through a tunnel/large pipe under the dual carriageway).  We found ourselves constantly crossing back and forth over the stream, stepping from rock to rock to avoid having to hike in cold, wet footwear.  We must have crossed back and forth perhaps 50 times in all – and even assuming each careful crossing (using poles to balance) took the three of us just a couple of minutes or so each time, that still meant two hours or more of lateral movement over the day, significantly slowing our progress.

That was not the only problem.  At times we had to climb up from the bottom of the gorge to get around particularly sheer rocky banks, and the climbs were challenging as in the rain our boots became increasingly muddy and lacking in grip and the rocks above the gorge increasingly slippery. In places steel handholds had been embedded in rocks to help get around protruding boulders or particularly steep rock faces, but sometimes I’d guess we were up to 15 or 20 metres above the water and a fall would have been potentially catastrophic.  This was probably the first really difficult part of the hike – definitely made much more challenging by the weather and the occasional confusing trail marker….Still, there was little chance of getting lost as the gorge went on, and on, and on – although once or twice we lost the INT markers marking the easiest route over difficult parts of the gorge.  On one occasion I scrambled up a particularly challenging part of the gorge, getting very wet and bruised in the process, to find it was not the way forward.

There is a lot to see. The gorge is full of caves, and near the Nahal Amud pillar itself, towards the end of the Lower Nahal Amud, archaeologists have found evidence of Homo Heidelgergensis and Neanderthal man using stone and flint tools.  Later, in the Upper Nahal Amud, man harnessed the power of the water to build a series of watermills (originally 26 in all) for making wool and flour, with an aqueduct system to power them; the remains are clearly visible.   There is an interesting background.  After the expulsion from Spain, in 1492, Jews brought a new technology to Safed, which helped them to produce good quality woollen cloth. This production process involved beating the wool forcefully (fulling). The Jews of Safed built fulling mills operated by the water power of the Amud stream, which they called ‘batan’ (from the Arabic word for ‘to beat’). The golden age of the Safed fulling mills lasted only three or four generations, after which the mills were converted to regular flour mills in use until the 20^thCentury.

At one point it is possible to climb steeply 450 m to the top of Mitzpe Hayamim mountain, one of the few places in the country where from the same spot you can see both the Kinneret and the Mediterranean– a treat we didn’t know about until later, but would have missed anyway in the then poor visibility.

There are also two huge stone stairways, one each side of the gorge forming part of the Israel National Water Carrier.  This is the siphon through which the National Carrier crosses the Amud Stream, passing over a 150 m deep channel. In this section, the water is carried through steel pipes. After going down the northern bank of the stream, it then goes up again onto the other bank without the need for any input of energy (the law of communicating vessels). The pipe is some 700 m long, and has a diameter of 3.10 m, and is laid in a channel carved in the cliff, 5 m deep and 10 m wide. The pipe is covered with concrete in the form of stairs.

I was also struck by the profusion of spring flowers everywhere – an extraordinary range and array of colour that followed us throughout our three day walk.  Although too late for the height of the iris season, we saw poppies, cyclamen, orchids and much more.

We also heard loud dog-like animal calls apparently signalling in the valley.  We guessed jackals or foxes (could have been wolves or wild boar, but sounded more dog like); I suspect jackals – the sound was deeper than a fox bark.

The Amud gorge was also once famous for raptors/birds of prey.   The Israel Nature and Parks Authority states: “In 1864 the priest and naturalist Henry Baker Tristram described the nests of hundreds of vultures, several bearded vultures,
lanner falcons and rock doves on the cliffs of the Amud Stream. In the past, Bonelli’s eagles also nested in thecliffs. Even today, although many of the raptors around the country have been harmed, the cliffs offer an important nesting site. In December 2010, up to 50 vultures were observed spending the nights on the Amud Stream cliffs, as well as other passing birds of prey such as the cinereous vulture and the golden eagle. That year, nine vultures’ nests were built there. Other species of birds of prey nesting or staying around the Amud Stream cliffs are the long-legged buzzard, the lesser kestrel, the common kestrel, Bonelli’s eagle, the Egyptian vulture, the cinereous vulture, and the snake eagle.”

In the end, we found ourselves running pretty late, and it was eight and a half hours before we finally passed the Amud itself, a limestone pillar 20 m high, and shortly after, some 18km from Meron, reached Road 8077 where we had left the C3 – with my walking pole comfortably nestling inside the boot.  Aaargh!  It was dark and we were pretty tired before we finally arrived at our accommodation for the next two nights, Kibbutz Hukuk.

The accommodation was simple but adequate – the shower was hot and the supper we dashed straight into unwashed – to avoid hoards of schoolkids about to arrive, wholesome.  We didn’t much care.  We all crashed out easily that night.

Well, I’m currently on flight EZY2038 from Luton to Tel Aviv for the next stage of our hike.  Curiously, at the airport I bumped into Laurence Gold (he was off to Innsbruck to ski in St Anton) – you’ll remember it was Laurence who set me off on this adventure in the first place and suggested this blog.  Currently he, Josyanne, Michael and Lucy are 38 days or so along the INT, and on the their last three days walked from Sde Bokker through the wilderness of Zin and across the Ramon Crater.  He described the trip as the most spectacular three days so far – so something to look forward to. Interestingly, they have given up on using Kiki and her company – they thought she was lovely but preferred guest houses and a full diet to camping and Vegan food…

This trip comes after a hectic time – last week Ruth and I visited her Aunt Sybil and stayed overnight at Lime Wood in the New Forest, the previous week I was skiing in Cortina, the week before I went skiing for the weekend with Jonathan – the combination has caused my ankle and achilles to feel inflamed and sore.  I hope it will last over the next three days.

I have decided we need a symbol for the trip and have had T-shirts printed with a photo of the INT tricolour route marker on one side and ‘Hiking the Shvil’ on the other.  Unfortunately ordering online I managed to get Rafi’s shirt printed back to front…. but it will be fine.

Plans for tomorrow follow what is now the normal pattern. I’ll pack tonight and tomorrow we meet at Ronnie’s at 05:45 to drive up to Kibbutz Hakuk, where we are staying for the two nights of the trip (Ruth Rimon in Safed cancelled our booking because of overruns in renovating their kitchens).  We will leave a car there, and then go to Meron to start the walk along Nahal Amud to our overnight stop.  The spring weather is forecast to be pleasant, and I’m looking forward to seeing the spring flowers, but with the risk of showers and possibly hail. I’ve brought a hat, but perhaps my ski helmet might be better…