Day 7: From Tzihor to Nahal Barak campground - 9 October, 2017

I started the day from the Tzihor campsite (there were a lot of other people that slept there with their 4WD cars), but there was still plenty of room and I was exhausted and slept well.

I got up at 6:00 and managed to leave around 7:15 after finding the water in the cache.

Breakfast was turkish coffee, and tortillas with raw tehina.

My tent

The start of the walk was quite pleasant, much nicer than the day before. It started along a wadi (river bed)

Before the 4x4 cars came along making a lot noise, I managed to see some ibex.

After quite a walk, I arrived at Vardit Canyon, which was really impressive (but also very dry!)

It looks like it would be a lot of fun to come here when the pits are filled with water. One of these pits was full of hornets (dabur in Hebrew). No option but to go through. I waved my hiking sticks at them (which had very little effect) but I made it through without getting stung.

After Vardit canyon (where I did see one other person walking), there was a long plateau (where I saw a couple walking the opposite direction).

After what seemed much further than I thought, I made it to Barak Canyon. As it is easier to get to, there were quite a few people here.

Again, it looks like it would be great to come here after some rain!

After the Canyon, it was still quite a long walk to the Barak Canyon night camp.

I passed one of the trail libraries (but I already had a book :)

There were a few cute birds accompanying me on the way

At first I wasn't sure if it was a rock or a dried out beet (turned out it was a rock :)

As I got near to the night camp (I could see the Arava highway), I realized I was walking parallel to the road instead of towards it. As the sun was setting soon, I checked my location on my phone and realized I had missed the last turn. I was close to the continuation of the Israel trail for the next day (it basically heads to the night camp then back out again), so I walked in the south direction until I got to the night camp.

I was very relieved to make it before dark and quite exhausted. This time the water cache was still there. There were a few  families there (I appreciated the tea and cookies!), and a ranger from the Nature and parks authority came by to check everything was OK.