Walls of Jerusalem – Day 1B – Stretching Out the Muscles at Sunset

Having refuelled and watered, and with the evening light still promising to hang around for a while thanks to the approaching summer solstice, we decided to do a quick walk up to Herod’s Gate to stretch out our muscles and get our first view of the Vale of Bethesda and the Walls. On our way up we could see the light of the lowering sun on Clumner Bluff, which we’d walked in front of in the morning.

The other noteworthy view behind us was of the instantly-recognisable Barn Bluff, on the left, and Cradle Mountain on the right.

Provided you don’t have to walk in close proximity to it, Richea scoparia is a beautiful plant, forming waist-high tightly compacted bushes of prickly branches and, as you will see later, some lovely flowers at this time of year. However, there were plenty of times on the walk when I was very glad of my new gaiters, since walking in close proximity turns out to be unavoidable in this area.

That’s my brother David in the photograph below, silhouetted in the process of taking a photo of the cliffs near Mt Ophel on the north side of Herod’s Gate.

And this is the view of the Vale of Bethesda, with Mt Jerusalem the furthest peak on the right, The Temple in the middle distance to its left, and Mt Ophel running alongside Lake Salome. The West Wall formed by the unseen-to-the-right King David’s Peak and Solomon’s Throne is sending its shadow across the valley.

The edges of the lakes can become quite boggy, and a feature is the prevalence of “pineapple grass” (Astelia alpina), with its silver-green tussocks.

The other fragile feature of these alpine areas is the “cushion plant” or “vegetable sheep”, which forms hard bright-green mounds (there are a few species; this is probably Donatia novae-zelandiae). The flower growing in the centre is not, however, the flower of the cushion plant (which is white), as sometimes other seeds take root in its densely packed foliage.

As the sun gradually disappeared, we took one last look at what tomorrow would bring and took a few photos of each other, before dropping back down to our campsite for the night.