We stepped from the friendly ambience of the Kibbutz Lavi Hotel into the mild warmth of a clear Thursday morning. Our path took us across the central installations of the kibbutz: chicken runs, cow sheds, a petrol station, yards full of agricultural machinery, stables, workshops, offices, staff houses…

We walked along a well-defined path into neat fields, curving towards the low prominence of the Horns of Hattin. The big hill has a couple of lumps in it like protrusions growing on the head of a young bull. Everywhere in Israel visitors are either ogling history or trampling over it. Here you can do both. In 1187 Crusader forces clashed with the Muslim army of Saladin in the open country under the Horns of Hattin, right where we were walking. Saladin routed the Crusaders, putting an end to European Christian power in the Levant until Napoleon turned up at the end of the 1700s.

We reached a T-junction in the path, with an innocently inviting turn to the left and an equally inviting wriggle of pathway to the right. Both options were marked with trail blazes, so we consulted our map. The path to the left looked shorter. No-brainer… we turned left.

A gently rising staircase took us upwards and around the contours of the hill. A vast panorama opened up beneath us: the distant white roofs of factories and glasshouses glinting in the sun, shimmering villages and townships, green and yellow fields, a busy highway with insect-like cars creeping along it. We gulped big breaths of clean air and stopped for a selfie or two. How good it was to walk free and strong with the world spread out below us.

I pose on the heights between Lavi and Arbel, innocently (or arrogantly?) unaware that our old age is about to be tested on surfaces rougher than we’ve ever walked on before.

Hmmm… within an hour that sentimental froth had been whipped away from us. The path turned nasty. REALLY nasty. A trap snapped shut… there was no turning back. For the next four hours we had to struggle forward over the most difficult walking terrain we have ever encountered in the ten years of our walking careers. It wasn’t a long distance, but it was slow going and harrowing while it lasted.

Here is our “path”. Yes, it is an “official” pathway. Note the trail marker on a rock bottom left.

Emmy comes up a slope, balancing precariously on the rocky surface.

The track ascended and descended steeply, sometimes precipitously. Over considerable distances (at least it felt “considerable” to us) the surface was boulders and rocks. Not a “path” at all. Yet it was the path, marked at regular intervals with official trail markers. We couldn’t leap from boulder to boulder as young walkers might have done, or mountain goats. In places we had to wobble forward, inch by tiny inch, testing every step with our poles, maneuvering among the crevices, crawling, or sliding on our bums in places. Being old, we were fearful of a fall or a sprain. At one point I slipped on to my back between two rocks. I couldn’t fold my legs under me, or find support for my arms on the smooth surface of the stones. Emmy couldn’t get close enough to help. It took me five minutes to get upright. The combination of old age and boulders is not a good one.

Maybe over that crest the path will smooth out and it will be easy going again. Totally alone, we had no help but hope.

When we emerged from the grass and stones above the village of Kfar Zeitim, we were aching, dehydrated and exhausted. In the distance we could see our destination, the hamlet of Moshav Arbel. Behind it, through a gash in the hills, we could also see the burnished steel of Kinneret, the Sea of Galilee.

Kinneret visible in the distance, and our destination, Moshav Arbel, visible centre-right. We still have around two hours of walking (trudging? plodding? staggering?) ahead of us.

Another hour brought us to a highway leading east towards Arbel. As we drooped along the shoulder of the road a car skidded to a stop beside us.

“Need a lift?”

A miraculous flash of energy teleported us instantaneously into the car where we met Corinne, the young driver. In ten minutes she had whisked us to our accommodation at the Arbel Holiday Homes. We thanked her profusely, but we couldn’t find words to tell her how deep our gratitude really was. Corinne didn’t care. In the spirit of true generosity she simply gave us a cheery wave and drove off.

The proprietors of Arbel Holiday Homes, Ben Konowitz and his wife, greeted us warmly and ushered us to a simple but comfortable cabin. I started to tell Ben of our sufferings. With a glimmer of Jewish humour and the slightest of smiles, he waved my lament away.

“You’re walking the Jesus Trail,” he said gently. “You’re supposed to suffer.”

A jostling crowd of pilgrims and tourists jammed the front door of the Cana Wedding Church. (Cana is often mispronounced /kay.na/. It should be /ka.na/.) Emmy and I elbowed our way in and took a seat in the back row of pews. Under its bright red dome the church hosts a spacious nave and a light-filled transept. As we took in the ambience, a church functionary tried to shoo the crush of selfie-snapping visitors out.

Christian visitors from southern India milling around in the Cana Church courtyard…

… and inside the church tourists mingle with devout worshippers.

We were about to witness what the Cana Wedding Church is famous for. At the front of the nave, standing in a semi-circle before the altar, stood seven middle-aged American couples. One of the grey-haired ladies was wearing a bridal veil and holding fast to the hand of her slightly stooped, somewhat paunchy husband. They were all there to reconfirm their marriage vows. A Catholic priest appeared and launched into a short service. With sing-song enthusiasm he read from the second chapter of John’s Gospel.

On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there, and both Jesus and his disciples were invited to the wedding. When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what does that have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.” His mother said to the servants, “Whatever he says to you, do it.” Now there were six stone water pots set there for the Jewish custom of purification, containing twenty or thirty gallons each. Jesus said to them, “Fill the pots with water.” So they filled them up to the brim. And he said to them, “Draw some out now and take it to the headwaiter.” So they took it to him. When the headwaiter tasted the water which had become wine, and did not know where it came from (but the servants who had drawn the water knew), the headwaiter called the bridegroom and said to him, “Every man serves the good wine first, and when the people have drunk freely, then he serves the poorer wine; but you have kept the good wine until now.

Middle-aged couples from the United States reconfirm their marriage vows.

The best wine is well-aged wine and is drunk later in life. That was the message of the priest’s brief sermon on marriage, interrupted with giggles as the couples exchanged their renewed vows and wedding rings. The twenty-minute service wound up with a chaste kiss (“…just a very brief kiss!” warned the priest, but he was grinning as he said it.)

In the alley outside, the souvenir shops were doing a brisk trade in (what else?) wine. I sampled some. It was very red and very sweet, like sherry or rich port. I was deep in the narrative and reached for my wallet. Then I remembered, wine = weight. A day of walking lay ahead of us. There are certain trials that no amount of wine, however old and rich, can make smooth. I chose light luggage over a light head.

Some of the walk to Kibbutz Lavi was tough. Here Emmy picks her way over grey rocks between grey, rock-hard cactus plants.

The temperature hovered around 25 degrees. It wasn’t uncomfortably hot, but we had to stay well-hydrated

May 8^th took us from Cana to the prosperous orthodox Jewish kibbutz at Lavi, a distance of about sixteen kilometres. We would be crossing an unmarked but nevertheless real apartheid boundary between Arab towns of Cana and Tur’an, and the Jewish territory of Lavi. Our route took us over open, empty countryside and through the Beit Keshet Forest. This so-called “forest” was sparse and degraded, struggling to live right beside a military base complete with barbed-wire fences and guard towers. But we felt at home… the forest was populated by large clusters of Australian ghost gums with their messy leaf litter and whiff of eucalyptus perfume. Even… could that be a dingo!? It was in fact a jackal. It darted on to our gravel path, stared at us for a split-second, then vanished. Again, we were completely alone, surrounded by sweet silence and sweet solitude.

Around midday we reached the Golani Junction, a major meeting point of the north-south and east-west highways in northern Israel. The trail took us past a McDonald’s restaurant and into rough farmland. The ground was stony and splotched with rock-hard dry mud well trampled by cattle. Large grey cactus plants leered over us. We reached a barbed wire fence hanging over boulders. This was a crossing point, but it took us a good ten minutes to find a way through the swaying, razor-sharp confusion of wires.

We had lunch in a roadside Arab restaurant. “We want a light, simple lunch,” I told the waiter. “OK, OK, no problem… very small meal.” And this is what we got. On my plate: chicken schnitzel with sesame seeds, chips and rice. Then clockwise from the left of my plate, savoury rice, gherkins, olives, roast slices of eggplant, hummus, flat bread, fresh salad, and various relishes. Emmy has chicken kebabs on long steel skewers. And after eating as much as we could, we were invited to shift to another table for….

… explosively strong Turkish style coffee and various sweetmeats.

By mid-afternoon we could see the Kibbutz Lavi Hotel, a substantial grey concrete building atop a high hill across neatly tilled fields. But somehow, the road we were on circled around the hill. It was an hour of plodding, culminating in a steep, hot climb to the kibbutz entry gate, before we reached the haven of the hotel. The welcome was warm and soon we were stretched out on a soft bed in a modestly luxurious room feeling the fatigue ebb away.

We enjoyed a smorgasbord dinner in a large dining hall with scores – perhaps hundreds – of American Jews in tour groups, mixing it with kibbutz staff. The atmosphere was relaxed and convivial, brightened by the excited chatter of children. We felt comfortably at home. A wide range of Jewish styles was on display, from smooth shaven young men sporting crew-cuts and wearing shorts and t-shirts, to figures with corkscrew side-locks wearing black kippa skull caps and creamy prayer shawls under their dark jackets and waistcoats. Many women hid their hair under colourful turban-like headcloths, their modest dresses reaching down to their ankles.

It was Independence Day, which is always the day after Memorial Day. Everywhere there were Israeli flags: on the tables, hanging from the ceiling, decorating the food bars. The atmosphere was mildly exuberant and there was a special range of foods on offer: plentiful, very varied and delicious. Thinking with regret of my decision that morning not to buy a bottle of wine in Cana, I corrected my mistake and bought a mini bottle of red. The Jewish gentleman at the next table lifted his eyes from the mountain of roast meat and eggplant on his plate to point at the bottle and congratulate me on my taste. “Yes, it’s not bad,” I admitted. “Not bad!!??” he bristled. “That’s from the Gamla Winery in the Golan Heights. It’s the best wine in the world!”

I wanted to argue the case for New Zealand Pinot Noir, but my neighbour had headed back to the food bar and was busy heaping a second (or maybe a third?) helping of meat and eggplant on to his plate.

On the way to Kibbutz Lavi, still managing to look cheerful. Little did we know… (see next post)