Day 15 - getting toughened up to traveling - finally. No snivels, coughs, diarrhoea, and all present and packed for the 8.00am start. We headed out into the Judean Hills (the Biblical Wilderness) and it quickly got VERY dry. Saw a few Bedouin tending their flocks of goats and living in ramshackle temporary shelters. The land looks like it could support only about 1 goat to 50 acres and there is always some kid with them. We plunged down and down well below sea le...

Day 14 - cold and clear, good driving weather for a trip down to Bethlehem with a new guide Khalid and driver George - both Christian Arab residents of the Occupied West Bank. Bethlehem is close and the ever expanding Jerusalem will soon swamp the the town in the next few years. Most families here have about 6 kids!! So the population is increasing rapidly. Jerusalem is becoming more religious as the ultra-orthodox Jews are drawn to the place while those who are...

Day 13 - 9.00am start on a sunny cold morning. First up The Temple on the Mount - seems you need to get there early to avoid the crowds, and we did. We stormed through the Jaffa Gate again, following Allenby’s footsteps, through the market, turning neither right nor left, past the Western (Wailing) Wall and up the Gentiles new staircase to the Temple Mount. It was huge, spacious, not many people, very peaceful. Non Moslems are not allowed to go into the El Aqsa...

Day 12 - cold and windy start in Jerusalem - on the road south for 1.5hr to Beersheba (Beer Sheva to the locals). The land got flatter and drier, big paddocks of ripening barley and wheat. And then there it was - Tel el Saba - the hill that the NZ Mounteds took at bayonet point on the morning of 31 October 1917. We climbed up to the top of the Tel and our guide Graeme read us the story of the battle - I even got it on video!! We could see the entire plain over...

Day 11 - we were warned there would be a lot of walking - and they were right. It is Saturday - the Sabbath for the Jews, so the road to Jerusalem was quiet, virtually no cars, as it was the day of rest. We left Tel Aviv, crossed the coastal plain and climbed up through the forested hills to the Holy City - about 800m above sea level. It is raining and much colder (11degC) up here. It is an old city but well cared for, buildings in good repair - almost 1mill peop...