Journey to the World

In Park HaSharon there’s a recommended winter tour which includes a five kilometers walk (each way, or ten kilometers both ways). The winter is an excellent time to see this area, because at that time flowers are blooming and the forest is becoming greener than ever. You can walk on the marked trail (less attractive) or go straight through the forest along the small stream that crosses the park. On the way, we passed through lovely yellow fields, seen red anemones and buttercups, and walked by a grapefruits orchard. We visited the last dune (many years ago there were many dunes here). Then we walked to the winter pool. We came back on the marked trail, where we saw a large flock of white egrets and a herd of sheep.

The trail starts not far from the western railway station of Hadera. Keep driving from the station toward Hadera Forest until you arrive at the improvised parking lot (where you see people with their barbecues).

Walking trail in the forest

Even though the beginning of the trail is supposed to be obvious, it’s not easy to find where it entrance. We looked around for a couple of minutes and found other people looking for the entrance. Finally we entered the forest and walked South according to the advice given to us by one of the locals. In the forest we saw chopped tree trunks that merged with the wild green grass, as well as eucalyptus trees and small swamps along the small stream crossing the forest.

To make things short, from the parking lot you have to go straight South right into the forest until you get to a stream. You have to walk along the stream until you exit the forest.

The end of the forest is marked by a small bridge crossing the stream. You will find there a grapefruit orchard. You can pass it from its right or its left. We took the right side and arrived at a huge yellow field. Thousands of yellow flowers on a grass meadow. This is a good place to take a short break. Hiding within the river of yellow flowers we found a poppy flower.

We kept walking South, climbed a small hill and arrived at the last dune left in this area. There’s a fence on the left side. We walked by the fence which curved left at some point. We arrived at another field filled with red anemones and buttercups.

The trail led us to the famous Winter Pool. It’s some sort of a huge swamp that appears in this area every winter. You can see there white egrets resting on the water.

Finally we came back from the other side of the grapefruit orchard. There’s a dirt road separating the orchard and the forest we’ve crossed earlier. This dirt road is, in fact, the marked trail. We turned right and continued walking on the trail.

Flock of cattle egrets

Some cars are driving on this trail, so you have to be careful. By the side of the way we saw green fields. In one of them there was a big flock of cattle egrets. The cattle egret is a type of a heron usually located near cattle.

Herd of sheep and goats

We kept walking toward the parking lot. On the way we saw a herd of sheep and goats, while some egrets were hanging around them. The trail crossing the forest is much prettier but we didn’t see any animal inside.

There’s a dirt road going from the parking lot to Alexander River, where you can watch water turtles in a place called Turtle Bridge. During the winter, this road is flooded with water letting only 4×4 or high vehicles pass through. The other option is to go on the highway toward Tel Aviv until you get to Yanai intersection. It’s a fifteen minutes drive. This was our next destination for that day.

 

This article was published at 1-03-2008 Time: 15:57 and belongs to categories Egrets, Cattle Egret, Animals, Middle East, Hadera, Trekking, Hadera Forest, Israel, Sheep, Goats, HaSharon Park, Flowers, Birds, Natual Reservation. You can follow comments to this article using the feed RSS 2.0. You can post a comment, or trackback from your website.