Gamla
Gamla was a high priority location for me, almost from the outset of planning the trip. It is situated in the center of the Golan Heights, around 15 kilometers east of the northern tip of the Sea of Galilee at co-ordinates 32°54'20.16"N 35°44'47.95"E. We arrived a little late here at around 2:30pm and were expecting to meet up with Sergio and Rhoda sometime after 3pm.
Asides from its stunning natural beauty and abundance of flora and fauna, it is also packed with history. We'll get that part out of the way first.
Gamla has been inhabited by humans for at least 4,000 years and evidence of this is still in plain sight with around 700 dolmens. These are stone slabs laid over two (or sometimes four) upright slabs. They are most likely ancient burial edifices put together by nomadic tribes that inhabited the Golan Heights during the Bronze Age. Dolmens can be found all over the world from Korea, India, China, UK, most of Europe and the Middle East.
The Seleucid's built a fort here in the 3rd century BC before the area was taken over by the Israelites under Joshua in the late 2nd century BC. Whether or not this city was taken by force or was abandoned before their arrival is still unclear. The city grew and was built on a very rugged mountain edge, only accessible from a trail on the east.
Gamla joined the revolt against the Romans and was led by Josephus in 66AD. The eastern wall was quickly fortified with a large round tower built and many of the houses on the eastern edge as well as the eastern wall of the synagogue were incorporated into a new city wall. The Roman's attacked, but retreated after seven months. Soon after the city was put under siege again by Vespasian and they managed to breach the walls after a month of fighting, but retreated a second time after suffering horrific casualties. Their next attempt was successful and most of the city's inhabitants and those of surrounding villages were massacred in the aftermath. Evidence of the heavy fighting was discovered, with hundreds of arrow heads and stone ballista balls inside the synagogue. The city was completely destroyed and forgotten about for 1900 years until excavations began in the late 1960's.
Today the village can be visited and is very well worth a visit if you have the time. As usual, we didn't and instead had to view the city from the Gamla outlook with the help of my trusty 400mm lens. From this point, the wall and the remains of the round tower can be seen very clearly, as can the remains of the synagogue. The synagogue itself is one of the oldest ever discovered in Israel. Next to the synagogue, a ritual bath called a mikveh was also unearthed and is also remarkably well preserved.
Other buildings can also be seen from the lookout, however the oil press and western quarter is just out of sight on the southern slope. All of the buildings are made from the dark basalt stone sourced locally.
We had only an hour or so to enjoy the rest of the park and my goal was to spot some of the many Griffon vultures. On the vulture trail, a lookout has been built on the edge of the gorge over the Gamla stream. There is a pair of preserved vultures behind a glass case which shows just how large these birds really are - the larger birds can grow to have a wingspan of 2.8 meters.
It didn't take too long before the first vulture appeared from the western edge. Vinci and I were the only ones in the outlook at this time and he kept a very close eye on me (or the glass of my lens) as he glided gracefully overhead. I never really took much of a liking to vultures, I guess like many people, I envisaged a rather tatty bird ripping the flesh off rotting animal carcasses. And while the latter part of that statement is still true, often referred to as 'nature's janitors', they are very intelligent creatures and a real privilege to behold. The leading edge of their wings are around 2 inches thick and they can retract most of their neck underneath them. Once airborne, they glide for long distances without moving their wings once, keeping an eye out for a dead sheep, fox or small child.
All the vultures we saw are tagged on one or both of their wings for easy identification from the rangers. These Griffon vultures are critically endangered birds and are being closely monitored to ensure their survival. A few hundred yards away is a large cage where many of the young birds are housed. Visitors are prohibited from getting too close, which given the amount of screaming young children that visit the park, can only be a good thing. One can regularly see the larger birds landing on top of the holding cages to smuggle in contraband such as twigs or grass to their imprisoned friends.
During our time at the outlook, I found a total of twelve birds which took up around 300 photos on the camera. There was a good amount of clouds, but it was still difficult to take good photos of them as the underside is usually in the shadows. Occasionally however, I would get lucky with a bird flying beneath my level and the sun would brilliantly show off their coat of brown and white feathers.
Other wildlife in the reserve include wild boars, mountain gazelle, Indian crested porcupines, Palestine mole rats, Syrian rock hyrax (or rock rabbits as they are often referred to) and many reptiles such as the agama lizards and fan-footed geckos. We saw none of these. There are also other species of birds of prey such as the short-toed eagle, Bonelli's eagle and Long-legged buzzard. We saw none of these either. Moving right along.
From the vulture trail, we walked back towards the car park past the ruins of a long abandoned Byzantine village called Deir Qeruh which was founded in the 4th century AD. This village was never part of the ancient city of Gamla, which is situated around 1 kilometer away. The most outstanding ruins belong to a 6th century church which has interesting features in having a square apse rather than a semicircular type. These square types are very rare, but a few exist in other churches built of basalt in Syria and Jordan.
The village didn't survive much longer after the church was built and was abandoned around 100 years later. It remained this way until the Mamluk's arrived and resettled around 600 years later on, but was again abandoned after 100 years or so. The most recent habitation of the site was a Syrian village in the early 20th century, however this was also short lived after Israel took control of the Golan Heights after the Six-Day war in 1967. No trace of this village was seen.
We didn't get to explore Deir Qeruh for long as Vinci spotted Sergio, Rhoda and Joy racing down the path towards the waterfall. Sergio was told at the gate that the hike there was only '5 minutes', but it turns out the 'Israeli minute' is similar to us Aussie's saying 'just down the road', which could mean a drive lasting anywhere from 2 minutes to a full day. We all embarked on a power walk in an effort to reach the waterfall while also leaving enough time for the return. It shortly became obvious that the 5 minutes would be at least 15 minutes, in some places clambering down very steep paths.
Being spring time, we were presented with a huge variety of flowers and trees with patches of mustard, anemone, blue-lupin, star-of-Bethlehem and the stunningly scented white broom flowers. As usual, Vinci was once again mesmerised by the giant fennel sprouting out of the ground - "It's $2.99 a kg in Woolworths, you know."
Sergio, ever full of energy, raced off ahead to allow a few minutes for him to get some footage of the waterfall from the observation post on the other side of the gorge from his new drone. We eventually caught up just as the drone was ready for launch and enjoyed a few minutes taking in the surrounds. There are no rules regarding the use of drones here, only some generic directions of 'do not annoy the birds' and the usual civil aviation rules.
The light was beginning to dim and we had to head back to make the park closing time. We went ahead of Sergio while he packed up, knowing he would catch up to us very easily. Although we were about ten minutes past closing time, we still managed to overtake some other visitors so avoided the wrath of the rangers at the entrance!
Bazelet Waterfalls
We all agreed to head to a local water fall outside of the park, 'just down the road' (about 500 meters south of the park entrance road).
This waterfall is part of the Bazelet stream and is one of many which run from the hills on the border of Syria, some eight kilometers away and into Lake Tiberias (Sea of Galilee). The Bazelet waterfall is a short distance west of the road, however we decided to head east instead. This involved climbing up some smaller waterfalls, of which Vinci decided she had reached her limit and stayed at the base. The photo I got of Sergio helping Rhoda up is of course a lot more dramatic than it actually is! Once up the top, we saw the view of the greenest plains, dotted with more of the beautiful anemone flowers, heading off into Syria. The sun was trying to break through the clouds just before sunset and Sergio decided to launch the drone again. As he did, the sun finally poked through he was able to acquire some stunning footage of the area, including some wild horses crossing the river. This footage can be seen in his live stream here from 11:20.
We gradually made our way back to Vinci, sitting peacefully at the bottom of the falls and then parted ways with Sergio, Rhoda and Joy to get some dinner. Sergio mentioned a steak restaurant at Ein Gev, which sounded ideal and we took road 869. This was my first time on this road, but as it almost copies and parallels road 789 about 20 kilometers south, I decided to attach the Go-Pro to the front windshield to record it, which turned out to be a very good idea, as it is equally as good as 789. We were left speechless at the view as we descended towards the Sea of Galilee with the sun setting in its final stages.
Sergio called us en-route and asked if they could join us, which of course we were happy to have their company again. The restaurant is part of the Kibbutz at Ein-Gev called Marinado and we arrived about 15 minutes before the others. As soon as they did, I remembered I hadn't turned off or removed the Go-Pro from the front of the car! The meat platter we had was incredible, worth a trip to Israel in itself! We stayed back overnight in our cabin in Had-Nes.
"Wherever the corpse is, there the vultures will gather." - Matthew 24:28
Ancient Gamla was built on the peak in the foreground. The Sea of Galilee can be seen in the far distance
A pair of Griffon vultures
A trio of Griffon vultures
Another pair of Griffon vultures
The smaller waterfalls of the Bazelet river
Bazelet river
Continue to Part 20 - click here