2024-06-10 32 35

Location

In an orchard outside Pardes Hanna-Karkour.

Participants

Plans

My family's had a series of injuries and illnesses over the last month that prevented me from trying all but the simplest hashes. I still have sinusitis but with antibiotics I'm damn well going to set out on today's expedition. Easy enough: train day to Binyamina, bus to the general area of the orchard, walk to the point, back to the bus, pick up my wife's artwork from a Tel Aviv gallery on the way home.

Expedition

I got a good night's sleep and left this morning on the 9:09 train from Jerusalem, switching to the express train at Ben Gurion Airport. When I arrived at the Binyamina train station, I was surprised to discover that Moovit had a secondary option: take the local train from there to the station at Pardes Hanna-Karkour. This would take longer over all, but would require one less minute(!) on the bus. With an extra ten minutes on the train to compensate, I'll gladly take that tradeoff; I can get stuff done on the train.

At the Pardes Hanna-Karkour train station I encountered my first hiccup, leaving the station at the opposite exit from the buses. I had to go back through security and exit out the other side. Then I boarded the 71 towards Harish, with a stop at the point.

After a short time on the bus I realized the display that told us the next stop wasn't updating. This was worrying - it usually means GPS jamming - so I pulled out my phone. And indeed, my phone claimed I was in Beirut. Okay, I'll have to pay close attention as we get to the next stop so I know where I am on the route... hang on, that field looks familiar...

Instantly I realized we were passing the actual orchard where the point is. Which meant I had missed my stop, because I needed to get off just before it. I pressed the stop button anyway, maybe the next stop is close enough?

It was close enough. I was deposited just south of the orchard instead of just north of it. This will turn out to be extremely lucky, though I don't know it yet.

I'm on the side of southbound route 574, to the east of the point. There is a north-south path between 574 and the fields, but a lot of underbrush between me and that path, and a sharp descent and ascent that makes me worry there might be a river. So instead of going straight through the underbrush, I head south, so I can turn right on this side road that leads to the Menashe Regional Council offices, pass the gas station and go to the path.

That road turns out to cross a river. I was right. Good thing I didn't charge straight into it through the underbrush.

Earlier, I had spotted a guy in a tractor harvesting the field immediately south of the orchard. As I approached, I didn't know what I was hoping: if he was still there, it would be best to stop him and ask permission to enter the orchard (previous geohashing experience has shown me he's likely to own or work on both). But on the other hand, with no fences or "no trespassing" signs or crops to trample, the default for orchards is it's okay, and I'm risking getting a no... on the other other hand, it's the right thing to do.

Luckily, he was still there - though unluckily he was on the far side of the field and I had to wait for him to harvest a whole row before he reached me. He slowed down, waved, then realized I was looking at him expectantly with the intention of actually talking to him. So he shut down the tractor (it made an awesome din) and opened the window.

"Excuse me. Do you own the orchard to the north of here?"

"It's not an orchard, it's a vineyard."

"Oh, sorry. Do you own it?"

"No."

"Do you know who does?"

"It belongs to the kibbutz."

One of the rare times I'm pleased to encounter socialism. "Will they care if I go in and out?"

"No, I don't think they'll care."

Okay, I got the answer. But I can't help myself. "Because I have this game, where I go to random places in the country, and today it landed in the vineyard. I'm from Jerusalem." He nods as if this makes any sense to him. "Okay, thanks, see you later!"

With this ringing endorsement, I return to the path and walk north, towards the vineyard. And there's a fence around it. The gate is wide open, but there's a no trespassing sign on it... this area is covered by CCTV cameras... hmmm.

The guy in the tractor gave me implicit permission. But is he authorized to do so on behalf of the vineyard owners, i.e., the kibbutz? I stood there and thought about it for a minute and decided that the probability weight heavily in favor of him being a member of said kibbutz (he was working on the adjacent field, after all). So I'll go in.

I went in. And pulled out my preprinted maps, because GPS jamming was still active. Okay, I need to go to the middle bloc of five, and... carefully count them... either the 22nd or the 23rd row.

I get to the middle bloc and start counting rows, but I discover quickly that I don't need to; every fifth row has small sign that helpfully announces which row it is. But once I enter the row, how do I know when I've reached the point?

I don't. So I'll do the next best thing: I'll videotape myself walking down the 22nd row, then back up the 23rd row. It doesn't matter where the point is in those two rows; I've reached it. Success!

Now back to the bus stop. Obviously it's better to take the return bus from my originally intended stop, and not go all the way back around the river. So I head to the northwest corner of the vineyard... and discover it's entirely fenced in. The only entrance was from the southeast, where I came in. Missing my bus stop helped me reach the point much faster (though it's delaying me now).

Nothing for it. I walked all the way back through the enormous vineyard and out the front gates. Then, just outside the vineyard, I sat down and had lunch (salami, water, and amoxicillin); I figured if somebody had been watching the CCTV cameras and showed up, better to be just outside showing I had no untoward intentions than to be caught walking away. And in fact while I ate lunch a car showed up and drove into the vineyard, but didn't drive back out again. I don't know if they were looking for vineyard thieves (the grapes didn't look ripe to me, but I'm no expert) or if it was just a coincidence. I walked south again, waved to my friend in the tractor, and headed to the bus stop back to the Pardes Hanna-Karkour train station.

The bus did not arrive and I had to go to a different bus stop.