En Avdat
Today was our second attempt at En Avdat National park. This park includes a section of the Tsin River on the northern edges of the Avdat plateau. This plateau is between 400 and 600 meters above sea level. The cliffs rise an impressive 125 meters on either side of the river in this location. The river itself provides a thin sliver of life through the very barren land providing sustenance to a number of plants and algae.
The canyon was formed over 45,000 years ago. It is mostly made out hard Eocene limestone. Thin seams of black and white flint can be found through the different levels.
There are two entrances to the park, the southern off road 40 and the northern via Midreshet Ben Gurion, where we were staying. We chose the latter which involves a very steep and twisty descent, over the river and then a two kilometer drive to the parking lot (the same road we walked along in the early morning back in part 11).
The hiking trail follows the Tsin river with 100 meter high cliff faces on each side. Along the route a number of huge erosion caves can be seen, which are used by bats and small birds. The walk from the south to northern car park takes around an hour, although we took a much more leisurely pace, stopping off in many spots along the way.
Half way along the trail is a waterfall and beneath it a lagoon. There was a large amount of visitors at this part, so we headed to the top of the waterfall first via a very narrow and steep path on the western side of the river.
At the top, we sat under the only large tree in the area for some time providing some much needed shade. There were few people here and after a few minutes a beautiful lizard scurried past, perfectly blended into the sand.
As the crowds slowly subsided at the lagoon, we headed back down the very narrow path, which took some time as we now had the same continuous stream of tourists climbing up it! The lagoon is very pretty with a nice pool of green water, but difficult to relax here thanks to a number of screaming children.
The most impressive sight at En Avdat for me here was the Griffon and Egyptian vultures. We saw some of a number of these birds at Gamla national park at the opposite end of the country only eight days prior.
We were able to see a total of thirteen vultures here. Like Gamla, the majority are tagged to study their movements and help ensure their survival. It was nice to see some young birds on the ledges in the nests and some adult birds were seen flying between the ridges with materials for nest building. At least one vulture can be seen gliding over the canyon searching for food at any given time.
One of the best things we saw was an eagle being chased out of a cave by a flock of around 100 pigeons! This dogfight lasted around 5 minutes.
There are many species of birds here including the wonderful Tristram's Starlings which we had seen in Masada, various hawks, eagles, kites and some smaller white-crowned wheatears and white-spectacled bulbuls, like the one in the photo below. There are also a number of Nubian Ibex which can be sometimes be spotted inside the gorge, but as usual, we saw none during our time here.
Dimona
We made out way back to our lodging for lunch and then decided to head north towards Dimona about 35 kilometers north. We had left it a little late to go here, but set off regardless. I was hoping to see some aircraft flying in and out of the huge Nevatim Air Force base as we had seen yesterday while visiting Arad.
Things looked promising as we approached Yeruham when Vinci spotted a pair of C-130J Hercules transport aircraft flying in formation at very low altitude. A few other aircraft were seen, at which point I decided we should drive up to a very distinctive mountain directly underneath the apparent flight path. This required a bit of off-roading, and I followed some tire tracks left behind from another car. It soon became obvious that the people who had been here had been driving around on dirt bikes or custom built 4WD dune buggies, however we still managed to reach the foot of the mountain. The Mitsubishi ASX then did an admirable job of climbing it at an incline of some 30° until we reached the halfway point. It flattened out here for a brief moment before an even steeper 45° incline to the top. Unfortunately, the inbuilt inclinometer inside Vinci's head set of a series of ear piercing alarms and I had to settle for the view half way up, admittedly with a very good view anyway.
Unfortunately no aircraft flew past here again and after wasting a good 30 minutes eating fruit and talking rubbish, we headed back down the mountain to the main road. It became tricky here dealing with the fading light and avoiding a number of insurance nullifying ditches, all while listening to Vinci rabbit on about telling me what a fool I was to go off the main road in the first place. As we reached Dimona, I noticed the train line directly ahead and after driving through the town, thought we may as well just see if there was a train on the way.
I located a small road bridge over the line towards the east and almost instantly, a freight train of phosphate hoppers and oil tankers arrived behind a pair of EMD GT26CW-2 diesel locomotives, formerly owned by the Croatian railways. After this had passed, it was getting too dark to do anything else worthwhile and we went back to Midreshet against a stunning purple sky for dinner and sleep.
"And God said, "Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky." - Genesis 1:20
A beautiful Palestinian sunbird
A pair of vultures meet while doing circuits
A Tristram's starling keeping an eye from a cliff wall
Typical scenery of En Avdat
Vulture landing
Erosion of the cliff face, five million years in the making
Continue to Part 24 - click here