When people ask about pretty walks in Rehovot, my friends tell them to try the "Winter Puddle." It's an undeveloped area right next to the beltway around Rehovot. Here are pictures.
Looks stunning, right?
I forget the context in which I tried to find this alleged water a little over a year ago, but I remember that I was carrying BY in a wrap, and FF was incredibly whiney. There was a beautiful breeze, and FF did not like the wind. He did not. He wanted to go home. He just wanted to go back to the car. He did not like the wind blowing on him. Please. He just wanted the wind to stop. So we walked back to the car and drove home without seeing more than a few dirt roads and lots of pretty grass, and feeling, apparently, way too much wind on our faces.
Last week, I seized the day and tried again with only BY strapped to my back. Gentle reader, he was also kinda whiny, which is totally not his typical state when taken for a walk. But too bad for him, I went and stayed and had a lovely time poking around the natural state of the Rehovot area of Israel.
I started out the same way I did a year ago, and drove as close to the "winter puddle" area marked on Waze/Google Maps as I could without tearing out the bottom of the car. From thence, it was on foot!
Having gleaned what little information I could from the map, I decided to go vaguely "straight and to the left" When I got to the first fork that would have taken me right, I saw what appeared to be an abandoned watchtower in the distance. Good: watchtowers are up; water is down. Granted, abandoned watchtowers are also cool, but we'll leave that for next time.
Continuing straight, left, and downward, I passed an abandoned house that looks somewhat interesting. Another thing to look forward to visiting later: I am a woman on a mission!
I kept at at it, and soon was in the same general vicinity in which I gave up last year. The road is so long! The occasional turns all look the same! But last year, I only met a fun woman and her preschooler who were also there for the first time and wandering in search of the alleged puddle. This time, I met a group of two teenagers with their younger brother, who were coming back from the water. The teenagers told me to keep going straight, and then to pass the cacti on my right when I could. The younger brother told me excitedly that there would be trees.
So I continued straight, and immediately after the first clump of cacti, I saw a very short, very steep path with an orange grove on the other side. It seemed right, but the way down was steeper than I wanted it to be with a baby on my back, so I kept walking. Also, it must have been later in the year when I visited last time (and thus browner vegetation), because I remember talking with the woman and her preschooler about trying to cross a ridge with cacti, but I definitely did not see such a clear path.
Also, there were no kalaniyot last year, and those are early spring flowers.
I passed many more cacti and what I thought was industrial garbage.
(On my way back, I stopped for a closer look and concluded that the boxes are, in fact, bee hives.)
What had seemed like an endless flat road petered out with a sharp turn to the right, and I crossed the cacti next to an abandoned car.
Upon passing the rise, I saw an encouraging sign!
And sure enough, I found the water. Do you think these are the natural swamplands in Rehovot that the Israeli pioneers planted eucalyptus trees to drain?
My friends tell me that most years the "puddle" is bigger, but the silence and the birds and the wind rustling in the leaves and the water willows were gorgeous. I explored the area between the puddle and the cacti ridge fairly thoroughly, and then turned for home.
It did me good to get out for a short hike, and even more good to experience something closer to the natural state of the area where I'm living.
