Arad to Amasa on Israel National Trail: Day 23

My highlights today included coffee and croissants in Arad for breakfast and the Tel Arad archaeological remains at lunchtime.

Since I was in my biggest town yet on the trail, I decided to treat myself to coffee and a croissant for breakfast in one of the bakeries serving coffee. Not quite French standards as they covered the croissants with sugary stuff, but very welcome. I also bought some lunch food including a tuna roll with pickled lemons among other things, very tasty!

Rain was falling steadily by the time I started out from Arad. Many of the Hasidic Jews had fetching black waterproofs that neatly covered their hats. To save weight I had not packed any waterproof trousers so I soon became wet below my anorak. Through the day my trousers changed from wet to dry to wet again as showers came and went. A cold wind has blown all day, so not the best of weather. 

Leaving Arad I have also left the desert behind. I walked by fields of bright green grass, if rather sparse in places, carpets of yellow wild flowers and an orchard in blossom. They looked like the almond trees I have seen in Spain at this time of year. 

An orchard of almond blossom

Reaching Tel Arad I visited the archaeological site. One area had the ruins of a bronze age Canaanite village, complete with city walls, the other an iron age fortress, the partly reconstructed, which was part of the ancient Kingdom of Judah.

Fortress, partly reconstructed, from the time of the Kingdom of Judah

Continuing over sparse grasslands, the waymarking was not always that good, I was relying on the track on my GPS. The route went by a Bedouin village, looking much poorer than most Israeli settlements. There were camels, donkeys and flocks of sheep in the area. I was more concerned about some loose dogs which barked at me, difficult to assess if they wanted to bite me, though at least in one case they were just warning me to stay away from their sheep.

Camel left to graze

Towards the end of my day, I climbed passed a quarry and up an old Roman road to Mount Amasa, which at 859 metres gave a good view of the surrounding black clouds, pierced by sun beams in rare spots. Shortly after I reached Amasa kibbutz where Dede, a Trail Angel, has an old truck nearby converted into a basic place for hikers to sleep, with a compost toilet nearby. It took some time to get him on the phone and find out exactly where it was located among some storage units, but I was grateful to get inside out of the rain. The wind is still whistling outside but hopefully the weather will improve tomorrow.