Shvil Israel Day 12: Poleg Beach to Ranana Bus Station

Shvil Israel Day 12

Starting km: 305

Finishing km: 324

Distance walked: 19km

Not with a bang but a whimper.  This is the way the trail ends. I'd already concluded that due to the limited daylight hours, the inability to walk in the afternoon many days and my zero day after getting stung by the hornet, there was no way I'd be walking all the ~400km to Jerusalem.

And when I realized that my final day on the trail was Shabbat, and that in most of the country public transportation wouldn't be running until well into the evening, I kind of needed to base my endpoint for the day on where I could get an early-ish bus to Jerusalem to meet Sarah.

So I spent the first two hours of the morning joining the joggers and fishers and dog walkers enjoying the cool on Nof Yam beach.  A bit of hopping along a rocky foreshore and I arrived at the ancient city of Apollonia. I'd planned to spend a wee while poking around there, but discovered it had a somewhat high entrance fee and (sadly, like many of the ancient sites in Israel so far) wasn't actually that spectacular to look at.

So I had a picnic in the shade of some olive trees near the site before turning inland.

Here was where I left the official Shvil Israel, with about 8km to walk through affuluent suburbs and (dead quiet due to it being Shabbat) fancy shopping streets as I headed towards Ranana.

As I got nearer I found an open and very lovely shopping mall and then a park and playground that were positively overflowing with families enjoying their day of rest together.  I enjoyed the shade and made some Pokemon friends with kids in the park (one of several odd looking but entirely harmless behaviours that Pokemon Go encourages), even managing to make some trades with them for the world tourism day event.

Even walking slowly and pausing lots I still got to the bus station with more than an hour to spare.  So I waited with the growing crowd who were anxious to get moving (surprisingly about 90 minutes before the official end of Shabbat).

It felt a little funny to be whisked away over 80km in a little more than an hour, a dista ce that took two days even on my longest walking days.  But just as dark was falling I arrived in Jerusalem, my time on the Shvil Israel officially at an end.

Before concluding I'll just make a few comments about the trail generally:

• No matter how fit you are and how experienced you are with tramping/hiking elsewhere, don't underestimate the scarcity of and need for water and the power of the sun.
• The Shvil's trail angels really seem to expect to be called upon very regularly, so again unless you're super insistent on self sufficiency, don't be afraid to give them a call to ask for a bed, a shower or whatever.  I find myself wishing I'd done so more.
• The first 175km or so of the trail are littered with garbage, toilet paper and poo to a degree that is ready off putting.  If you're hiking the Shvil, make sure to be prepared to dispose of your waste properly.
• Would I recommend walking the northern section of the Shvil as a through hike?  To be honest, unless you have a bit of time to pass and really like walking long distances just for the sake of it (and/or to improve your fitness), and at least in the late summer or early fall, no.  Almost the whole section from when you start the climb up to Mt. Carmel to Naf Yom was really lovely. And before that there were a few real gems (Mt. Meron, Mt. Tavor and especially Wadi Amud).  But I'd suggest doing these on their own and skipping the under-shaded, over-garbaged, relatively uninteresting sections linking them together.
• Did I enjoy the walk?  Yes! I met some nice people, learned about a whole different style of through hiking, had a nice introductory taste of northern Israel, saw some beautiful sights, and regained some of the fitness I'd lost by being lazy and eating and drinking too much over a couple of months in Canada and Central Europe.

So here concludes our Shvil interlude.  We will shortly return to our regularly scheduled blog, slightly out of chronological order, with the story of my journey through the Czech Republic and Poland before rejoining the timeline and reuniting with Sarah in Jerusalem.