Israel trail log: November 2019

I took two buses to get to Mevo Betar junction, and from there walked back to Ein Kobi to continue the walk. I was relying on the red book (Jacob Saar's book), which was out of date regarding the Jerusalem part of the walk, so the second half of the day did not follow the book - the trail was changed to actually enter a suburb of Jerusalem and go through the main street of Ein Kerem.

I entered Begin park (Ein Kobi is inside the park)

I went past an interesting memorial to Begin

and after about half an hour arrived back at Ein Kobi to rejoin the path

There was a nice walk downhill through the forest

Soon after, the track went under the railway line (the old Jerusalem line)

The walk followed the train track (and the green line) for quite a while - I had been here before on the Tel-Aviv to Jerusalem bike ride.

The trail went past a small spring (unfortunately with lots of graffiti)

and soon passed a large, well-developed spring (Ein Lavan) just inside Jerusalem

From here, there was a short hike up the hill and I found myself inside Jersualem. I was particularly surprised because I had been using my out-of-date map. It turned out well because my phone battery was dying and my charging cable didn't work so it was a good chance to pick up a new cable.

After a few minutes walking through the Kiryat HaYovel, the path headed down towards Ein Kerem

A view of the Ein Kerem campus of the Hadassah hospital in the distance

The beautiful town of Ein Kerem

The path went through the main street of Ein Kerem (and past lots of tourists), before heading down into a valley towards Sataf.

Unfortunately the path followed a sewerage line with some sort of outlets, so every 50 m or so there was the smell of sewerage. Not exactly the feeling of nature . . .

The path soon reached Sataf. There were an awful lot of stairs to climb to reach the site (where I have been many times before).

There were some good views on the climb up (better than the stairs)

At the Sataf junction, there were the explanation signs

and a good place for a coffee and pastry for some energy to keep going.

After leaving Sataf, there were some interesting cloud patterns

and I passed one of the Israel trail libraries

The path soon led to Kibbutz Tzuba, where I had been a few years ago at the motor control summer school

On the top of the hill were the ruins of the village of Suba

with some great views of the surrounding area

There was a big sign on the hill saying "agriculture will win". I'm not sure about that . . .

A memorial for one of the battles at Tzuba

I finished the day at Giv'at Ye'arim junction. Next to the junction was a half-completed hotel that was never opened, there are some good photos of it in this blog post

A few days later I continued from Mitzpe Massua. In the eary morning, the clouds hung in the trees (it soon passed)

This is the colourful lookout tower at Mitzpe Massua

After waking for a bit, I crossed road 353 and past some sheep (statues) and a playground

Throughout the day there were lots of remains of people who lived here in the past.

I took a detour through Hirbat Kayafa, which most people think is Sha'araim. Sha'araim means two gates, and this place definitely had two gates and is in approximately the right place.

Soon the path went near a huge assortment of satellite dishes (kind of out of place)

I soon reached Kibbutz Netiv Halamed Hey (lamad hey = 35)

The kibbutz is named after the tragic story of 35 soldiers who were killed nearby in the war of independence while trying to supply Gush Etzion. There was an audio recording at the memorial which was quite difficult to hear (content not quality).

From here, I continued to Ein Tanur (a spring), a nice place for a break in the cool water.

Next to Ein Tanur was a village abandoned in the war of independence (Khirbat al-Tannur), but some of the buildings were still in relatively good condition. It was a little sad to see the site overgrown, and with no indication of its history.