Visiting a field school has been on our list for along time, and it finally bubbled to the top. We had initially made plans to go away with the Mirchin’s and a large group of Ra’anana people for a Shabbat B’Teva somewhere south of the Kinneret. Those plans fell though more or less at the last minute, but we decided to take the opportunity of a free weekend to visit Katzrin. Ever since hiking Nahal Yahudiah with the Dani, Margalit, Miriam and Philippe, I had been hoping to find a time to hike Nahal Zavitan, which is part of the same Yahudiah nature reserve.
Friday afternoon we set off for the field school. Dena had reserved a room (sleeps 8), signed us up for Shabbas dinner, and breakfast. On the way we tried to stop at Breichat Hamishumin, but as we arrived at 4:30 and the gates close as 4:00, we didn’t make it. No big deal, it was just a 10 minute detour. In no time at all we were at the field school. Everything looked great – more or less as I remember field schools. Clean and simple. Nothing fancy. A few fights over who gets to sleep on the bunk beds. Miriam was itching to sleep up top, but Dena quickly reminded me that the front desk had said one must be at least 10 years old to sleep up top. Wink. Wink. Miriam couldn’t argue with that! With a little cajoling, we managed to get all the kids to agree to sleep down low. Either on the bottom bunks or on the pull out trundles. That’s good, because I didn’t think the railings were very high, and I didn’t want any broken noses.
Shabbat dinner was, well, field school food. It was exactly what I expected – instant chicken soup with noodles, gefilte fish, overcooked cinnomon apple chicken, rice, and animal shaped shnitzel for the kids. Ronit was happy with the soup and shnitzel, I managed to each everything, and the rest of the family, well, they said they prefer Mama’s shabbas dinner. We were not the only ones at dinner. There was also a group of 8 families, co-incidentally also from Ra’anana. As you can image, it came time to say Kiddush, and nobody had a kippa. So on go the napkins – for the 8 adults and at least as many boys. Very typical for Israeli’s. It reminded Dena and I of our friend’s Atai and Tali’s wedding where Atai wore a napkin while signing the Ketubah. The kids got a real kick out the sight – at first not understanding what they were doing with napkins on their heads.
Shabbas morning – another field school meal. Dani didn’t like the milk because it was warm already and it was like water. He’s used to 1% not skim. It was not the same as the hotel breakfasts that we’ve had lately on all our other trips, but it was sufficient.
By 9:30 we had finished, packed our day packs with 10 litres of water, lots of food, changed into bathing suits, checked a map, and were ready to hike! There was only one little problem – we couldn’t find the trail head. Luckily Dena had remembered seeing a black and white marker the day before, and so we set out following her. Now, we never did see that marker, but we did find the trail head. So kudos to Mama for having the right instincts.
We had a long hike across fields that were used for grazing cows, and we were relatively close to some of the cows. Hiked to Zavitan, eventually got to the Hexagon pools, and had a great time swimming. Dani wasted no time in climbing the cliff and jumping off into the water. Of course he wanted me to join him in jumping. I said yes, but the I got up there, and well, it seemed really high. Did I say it seemed very high? I no longer ride the rides at amusement parks. I figure I’m old enough to not need to pretend I’m a kid. I tried explaining that to Dani, who could only respond with “wimp!”. I tried explaining that I wasn’t scared, I was terrified. No luck. Dani still wanted me to jump.Eventually, we left the pool and hiked on to see the 30meter waterfall. Stunning. We stopped in the shade of a tree and had lunch, decided it would be too much to hike to the bottom of the waterfall, and so, headed back to the first pool.
More swimming. More name calling. “Wimp”. Margalit jumped, and jumped again. Not that I care about being called wimp, but Dani seemed very upset that I wasn’t jumping. Feeling just a little bit manipulated, I closed my eyes and jumped. Argh! Well, at least I only had to do it once.
instant
After lots of swimming, we started our hike back. This hike I finally remembered to bring an extra trash bag to collect the garbage from all litter bugs. It was no problem filling the entire bag. Finally back to the field school by 5:30. Dena and I looked at each other in disbelief. The family is getting older if we can take all our kids on an 8 hour hike!. Wow! Ronit was quite a trooper.
