2024-02-25 31 34

Location

A field outside the town of Ben Zakkai, which is right next to Yavne. This late in the winter it will probably be full of crops, so I doubt it'll be accessible.

Participants

Yerushalmi (talk)

Plans

Train to Tel Aviv, drop off my wife's artwork at a gallery, train to Yavne, go to the field, discover I can't go to the point, come home. That's the plan.

Expedition

Train to Tel Aviv and dropping off my wife's artwork went as expected. To understand what happens next, I need to explain that there are two train lines from Tel Aviv that go through Yavne: one to the east and one to the west. Both train lines go to Ashdod afterwards. I needed the Yavne East train station, but the most convenient train from the area of the art gallery went to Yavne West. Moovit recommended I take the train through Yavne West to Ashdod, wait three minutes, and take a train back north from Ashdod to Yavne East.

I reached Ashdod with no trouble, but then came my mistake: the two northbound trains were scheduled very close to one another and I got on the wrong one, finding myself back in Yavne West.

This was a recoverable error. I took a bus across Yavne to the southern edge, where I would need to walk across into Ben Zakkai. I've been challenging myself more lately to use printed maps, so I headed south after the bus stop - but then I realized I went too far south, past all the roads that crossed the creek, and I would need to cross it myself.

Luckily, however, the creek was not only very low, but the denizens of Yavne and Ben Zakkai provided a nice little makeshift bridge out of rubbish:

From there it was a brisk walk through Ben Zakkai to the field, which was, as expected, covered with crops:

You might be able to see a sort of golf cart in the distance of that photo. When I first got to the field, there was a man in it, then he walked off to the left behind the bushes there. I didn't call out to him because I wasn't sure what field I'd need to enter - and by the time I realized it was this field, he was gone. The field had these furrows in it, presumably from similar golf carts, which implied I could walk to the point if I chose the correct already-trampled row. But I wasn't going to do it without permission.

I checked how long I had until the next train, and as a result was able to wait around for about half an hour, but he didn't return. So I accepted the No Trespassing consolation prize and went home.

On the way home I discovered I had left my jacket somewhere along the way, which is depressing.