The Horns of Hattin

We slept the night in a geodesic dome on a vegetarian goat farm - that is; the owners were also vegetarian, and so were we for the night! All very hippy.

Erick on the trail 

We set off early in two groups - part of our group had to travel a few kilometres further to where they'd booked in. The first group were away by 7.00am. We left after breakfast! The weather was overcast, threatening showers all day until the afternoon. And the trail was incredibly muddy - with a mud that clings to your boots adding a couple of kilos to the weight of your feet. A real slog at times.

Our route took us to the edge of a pine forest - not a NZ type forest, rather the quite scraggly Israeli pine forest - smallish trees among large boulders. We walked through a kibbutz farm in a rainstorm. The farm was very well organised - cattle and wheat fields. 

The Horns of Hattin in the distance

The fields, under a volcanic hill known as the Horns of Hattin, are the site of the battle between the crusader King Guy and the Moslem emperar Saladin. The Christians lost. He went on to conquer Jerusalem.

On top of the Horns are the ruins of a Canaanite fort and a later Jewish one. Interestingly all mention of the age of the volcano and the presence of a Canaanite fort have been scratched off the information boards.

Mt Arbel from the Horns of Hattin

There we caught the earlier group - they had got lost! After lunch we descended into the beginnings of Wadi Hamaan and followed it to the base of Mt Arbel, where we are staying tonight. And where we had a great dinner! Well deserved after covering 24kms.

The Sea of Galilee between Mt Arbel (right) and Mt Nitai - the rift is part of the rift that formed the Jordan Valley.

A roil of Caterpillars - there were quite a lot of these

Rock Hydraxs looking at us looking at them