TEL HAI

Annual pilgrimages by youth groups and veteran members of the HaShomer (The Watchman) association take place here in commemoration of the inspiring Jewish defence of this hill in 1920. Eight defenders of this early Upper Galilee settlement, including Joseph Trumpeldor, the one-armed founder of the Hehalutz Zionist pioneering movement in Russia, fell to armed Arab gangs. The eight included two women and the nearby development town of Qiryat Shemona (shemona=eight) is named in their honour.

The Tel Hai Courtyard Museum has been restored to its original shape after being partially destroyed by the Arabs. The grounds of this walled enclosure include agricultural equipment used by the pioneers in Tel Hai. There is an audiovisual presentation. The rooms where the defenders were shot have photographic exhibits showing life here in those early days.

Open Sun. - Thurs. 8 a.m. - 4 p.m. Sat 8.30 a.m. - 5 p.m. Entrance free. A youth hostel is situated within the grounds. Tel. (06)950791.

To get to the cemetery where the defenders are buried, walk or drive a short way up the hill, turn right and then sharp right again. A sculptured lion by Avraham Melnikeff squats on blocks of stone and is a memorial to the Tel Hai eight. Inscribed on this striking monument are the last words of Trumpeldor: ``It is good to die for one's country.''

Kibbutz Kfar Giladi and its Guest House are adjacent to the cemetery. Founded in 1916, Kfar Giladi has the Haganah Museum - Bet Hashomer, recording the history of settlement and defence in the region. Open: daily 9 a.m. - 12 noon, 4-6 p.m. (summer) and 3-5 p.m. (winter). Fri. and eve of holidays 9 a.m. - 12 noon. Entrance fee. Tel. (06)946373.

The road up the Naphtali Mountain range soon branches off to link up with Route No. 19 at Metzudat Yesha, 15 km. away on Road No. 886. However, you should drive down back to Road No. 90 which leads left to Metula. Four km. later, after veering left, turn right to the parking lot before the Iyon River Nature Reserve. This can also be reached from the northern edge of Metulla. If you walk a few hundred metres from here, you reach the uniquely shaped Tannur Waterfall, so named because it resembles an Arabic adobe baking oven. The Hebrew word for oven is Tannur. The waterfall is dry in the summer months but presents a remarkable spectacle during the rainy winter months between December and March. And there is water from melting snow until May. The site is open seven days a week 8 a.m. - 5 p.m. Entrance fee.

Metulla is about one kilometre further north, squeezed into the northernmost tip of Israel in ethereal, lovely surroundings. The farmers of Lebanon can be seen working in their fields bordering the town.

Some 1,500 people live in Metulla, founded in 1896 on lands bought by Baron Rothschild from Druze villagers. There are no factories. It is solely a farming area and it is a good retreat for city dwellers and tourists yearning for a few days of cool mountain air. There are a number of hotels and good pensions set in this unruffled resort settlement, 525 m. above sea level. (See ``Accommodation'' at end of the route.)

The Canada Centre, a state-of-the-art sports, cultural and recreational centre, has recently been built here. It is open every day from 10.00 a.m.-10.00 p.m. and includes indoor and outdoor swimming pools, two squash courts, a firing range, an Olympic-size basketball court, a tennis court, a football field, the biggest ice-skating ring in Israel, an aerobics room and a fitness room. There's also a health club, a beauty parlour, a sports shop and an Italian restaurant and cafeteria. Tel. (06)950370, 950371.

From Metulla, you can walk or drive up to ``the Good Fence,'' the border crossing to Lebanon. Originally the site of a clinic whose good works crossed barbed-wire fences, the post now sees a lot of two-way commercial and agricultural trade, as well as a daily influx of Lebanese workers. On a clear day, you can see wide vistas of Lebanon from here.

Backtrack to Qiryat Shemona, a development town of approximately 16,000 people, many of them new immigrants, who had to live with numerous rocket attacks from Palestinians in Lebanon before the 1982 Lebanon war. Pass the bus station on the road leading south, then the ancient tel of the biblical city Abel Beth Maacha, then observe the fish ponds, fields and orchards that you will pass by all the way through the Hula Valley until you reach Tel Hazor, 20 km. south.

The Hula Valley is one of the greatest land reclamation schemes undertaken in Israel. In the early fifties it was a forsaken swamp, whose malaria-infested marshes had only a rich variety of flora and fauna.

The work involved in making it into the semi-Eden it is today involved deepening and straightening the Jordan River so that water could be led into it from the valley. Years of back-breaking work culminated in 1957 with the successful drainage of the marshes. Drive on past the road leading up to Metzudat Yesha, as this is covered in Route No. 19.

Visit the Hula Nature Reserve, the last remnant of the original swamps, and the first of Israel's 120 nature reserves, established in 1956. There is an audio-visual presentation shown every 15 minutes, in Hebrew and English, as well as a guided tour lasting one hour. The reserve has several observation points for watching the amazing variety of wildlife, especially birds. There are also water buffalo, swamp cats, mongooses, and coypu, and several rare plant species.

Autumn, winter and spring are the best seasons for a visit. Open: daily, 8 a.m.-4 p.m. Entrance fee. Tel. (06)935016.
A little to the south of the Hula Reserve is the Dubrovin Farm reconstructed just as it was in pioneer days. It shows the lives of farmers in the region in the early 1920s, including the Dubrovin family home, garden and smithy. There is a restaurant at the site. Open: Sun.-Thurs. 9 a.m.-4 p.m., Fri. 9 a.m.-2 p.m., Sat. and holidays 9 a.m.-4 p.m.

Eight km. later, from the Hula Reserve, turn left for the Hazor Museum and the Guest House of Kibbutz Ayelet Hashahar, probably one of the best-known in the country.

It would be a mistake not to visit the Hazor Museum if you have time to see the ruins of the ancient tel on the other side of the main road. Even a cursory glance at the masses of pottery vessels, gold jewellery, javelin heads and basalt statues from Canaanite temples thirty-seven centuries old will be sufficient to heighten your interest in seeing the places where they were found. Open daily 8 a.m. - 5 p.m. (4 p.m. in winter). Entrance fee.