Trip 19: Present: Elli, Leora, Bruria, Cheftzi and Netanel. (12 km)
Corona is still with us. And life has been a bit limited. Our kids have been learning remotely from their bedrooms and I have been teaching remotely from my bedroom.
Every corner in our home has been transformed into a virtual workspace. Although my 9 year old has gone back to actual school, recently, many activities which flavored his week have not resumed such as afternoon activities.
Socializing has also been very limited. It's hard to plan things like vacations or outings. When my 9 year old couldn't sleep one night, and finally came downstairs crying softly uttering the following epiphany,
"I can't fall asleep because I have no tomorrow... There's nothing to look forward to...".
I realized that we had better plan something and I decided to take a day off of our routine and hit the trail.
Seeing as we have done many sections closer to home, we needed to be venturing further from home to cover ground on the trail. Given that it's winter again, the weather is great but the days are shorter. This means that we need to plan to stay over, the night before the trip, in order to cover ground.
We stayed at our good friends, the Tamam family, who live in Chispin in the lower Golan. We planned to get on the trail which circles the West side of the sea of Galilee. The beginning of this section was urban. We walked through Mitzpeh, a high community overlooking the Sea of Galile. But after the first 2 km we entered a forest called Switzerland Forest. Having been to Switzerland, I can tell you that it's nothing like it, but for Israeli standards it was very lovely, indeed. Due to the season it was lush and green. It's still early in the season for wild flowers but the view, the clear air and the scenery of the forest were a feast to our senses.
What was noteworthy of this forest is that the path was paved. The whole section would have been wonderful on bikes, or for older people who prefer level footing, or for wheelchair access. In addition to the paved paths there were "singles" paths for off road riding, as well.
Although there was water at the start of this forest as well as a few km into the trail, we did not like the taste of it and chose not to fill our water bottles with it. I would recomend carrying the water you need for this trip.
Ending where we did at Ein Poriya was problematic....taxis couldn't find it and we ended up walking 2 extra km to get to a more well-known road.
I would recommend continuing on the trail to road 90 and getting a taxi from there. Or else getting picked up slightly earlier on the 767, about a km West of 90.
I really recommend this section for all ages and the direction was key because it was more downhill than uphill. The first 2 km were a shallow uphill climb and the rest was a gradual descent.
For pictures of this day, click here.
