Tag Archives: Galilee

Nov 21 2010

Karmiel overnight work project

Last week I had to go to our remote site in Karmiel, this required wednesday and thursday away, its a 2.5-3 hour drive away.

Packing stuff to take.  laptops, tools, CDs, iPod for the long bus journey, overnight bag and clothes.   Think I will make sure there are some tools and CDs already at this site, so there is less to carry in future.

Also my bike helmet and lights as I need to ride to the main station.

I didn’t get any pictures of Karmiel sadly, as when we finished work it was dark.

There are these amazing hills that surround this town though, as this picture I got on thursday morning before work shows.

Servers to be patched and updated, unfortunately we hit some snags that meant we need to come back and do this another time.

Me and my colleague got lots of small little problems done here, quickly visited a local PC store to get some cooling fans and mice to replace broken ones, and now one of the PCs no longer sounds like an elderly blender.  I managed to set up the remote software (UltraVNC) properly so we can remotely take control of systems from HQ to fix a majority of problems that may happen.   Also managed to write some more documentation and update our software licencing spreadsheet.  Some things like the wireless routers we didn’t have time for, so I took one back with me and I will configure it and have it shipped back.

All these things mean that our staff can carry on feeding poor families without being held back by technical issues.   Its always good to do preventative maintenance that will look out for IT problems than can cause far more trouble if left in the future.

Heading back to Tiberias, its a real joy to go along these roads, the scenery is beautiful.  From Tiberias we caught the Egged bus back to Jerusalem.

Into Tiberias, (the main city overlooking the Sea of Galilee) as traffic was hectic and it was dark once we got there.  Left: In the middle of the high street was this ruined building, but I am not sure how old it is.  I would guess Roman seeing as this city is named of a Roman leader.  Right: It may be a little hard to see past this tree, but there is a fish shop there, right opposite the sea where Jesus and his disciples used to fish.

Oct 4 2010

St Peter’s fish

This is a Tilapia, also known as St Peter’s fish.  Commonly found in the Sea of Galilee, there are several restaurants in Tiberias (the largest city in this area) and places around Galilee.

Known as St Peter’s fish as its largely thought to be the creature that had the coin in its mouth in the bible.  Matthew 17 : 24

I went down the market and bought one of these for dinner for friday.   The fishmonger gutted it for me and rinsed with a shower head thing that was hanging on shelf.   The market is a good place to get fresh fish, even if the man had a cigarette in his mouth whilst working.

This one is about 6-7 inches long and has dark grey scales and white flesh once cooked, it also has a row of tiny sharp teeth.

After Jesus’ resurrection, after his followers were in disbelief he had come back to see them, he asked Peter for a piece of the fish they were sharing, as way to prove a point he was not a ghost.  Luke 24 : 40 I would take a bet it was some of this type of fish.

25 minutes under the grill at 150 and its looking good.   I need a bit more skill at getting the bones in one go though.   Also meant I found a use for some limes sitting in the back of the fridge. 🙂

I should of taken a photo before I cut the head off. 🙂

Sep 8 2010

Galilee road trip part 3 : Miracles of Jesus on location

Parts 1 – 2 – 3 – more soon…

Back to continue the camping trip I did in the Galilee in May.  The towns surrounding this lake are where Jesus spent most of his ministry.

With the aid of a few supplies we took on our expedition, I decided to do some photos to recreate some of the miracles the Lord did on this very place.

Water into Wine.   As mentioned in John 2 : 9.  Jesus did this at a wedding in Cana which is a town some distance away from the west side of the sea, although I am the east side.

The sea and the coast can look quite foggy at times. The places where we camped has this amazing view, this wall is great to sit on and view until the sun goes down.

Five loaves and two fishes.  I have used some tinned pilchards, as I think using fresh fish in a car with 5 people and loaded with other stuff on a hot day would not be very a popular.

The scriptures here mention this was done by Jesus in a place called Gennesaret on the north west of the sea.  Check Matthew 14.

This sign is famous for its comedy value, I saw this is a park in a far up north part of Israel.  Some of my friends said they had seen this in national parks in other parts of the country.

The middle symbol looks like its saying ‘No walking on water’!

Parts 1 – 2 – 3 – more soon…

May 11 2010

Galilee road trip part 2 : setting up camp

Parts 1 – 2 – 3 – more soon…

Sometimes known as Lake Tiberias, Lake Kinneret, but its probably best known to most people as the Sea of Galilee.

After some driving around and exploring on foot on some picnic sites over looking the lake, we eventually settled on this one.

This would be wonderful enough if this was just a regular national park, but – this is Jesus’s backyard, a lake that was the place for many miracles, feeding the 5,000, turning water into wine, putting the demon from a man into the herd of swine (who fell to their deaths) finding many fish in the lake when the fisherman’s earlier efforts in the day yielded nothing.

The place we pitched on a picnic site was nothing short of spectacular.  The lake is about 13 by 8 miles long.

I wasn’t able to get join the six pictures together to get a full impression of the lake, but I think this one is ok:


top: As the ground is very hard and difficult to get pegs in without a hammer, I opted to mix bodging and camping and tie my tent ropes to this tree which had branches in the right place. lower: the Lance boys are well used to making a good fire.

That night I got to learn the phrase ‘glamping‘ ie: glamorous camping, a word to induce general banter, amusement and teasing of other members of the party who were less used to proper camping and would take frivolous luxuries such as iPhones, posh wine glasses and other things more suited to home. ‘you glamper, you!’

Parts 1 – 2 – 3 – more soon…

May 6 2010

Road trip to the Galilee

Parts 1 – 2 – 3 – more soon…

Last weekend I went on a road trip, 10 of us in two cars up to the north of the country towards the Golans and the Galilee with me doing some of the driving, I picked up the rental car, a Kia Magentis a fairly dull Korean car which did the job fine, it had plenty of space and was reasonably pleasant to drive.  Seems that Israelis mostly favour automatics I am not sure why it maybe to do with the lot of Americans that are here, or possibly due to the roads are steep and hilly, and as the speed of your driving has to change very frequently, it becomes a lot of work to constantly switch between second and third gear often as I have found as I often use to drive around Hindhead and Surrey way back in the UK when I often drive through the twisty roads  in a forest in mostly darkness to go and have a few beers and a curry with my good friend John P who is there.

Anyway the trip required a large cooler box for perishable food, a ton of nuts and dried fruit, lots of firewood as well as 5 tents and sleeping bags for everyone as well as the pots and pans.

The drive up there, although was challenging needing to be assertive enough to squeeze in competing traffic, not in a aggressive or selfish way, but part of the hectic patterns of driving which is common here.  Cars here are often old and beat up and deaths in road accidents are twice what they are in UK and the US, not hard to imagine when I often see other drivers impatiently overtaking on some completely blind bends and hills.  Although driving standards are bad here so is Italy, Greece, Turkey and Egypt, so it seems to be a Mediterranean thing.  I found it not that hard to drive on the other side of the road but an auto box takes a little bit of getting used to.   Unlike modern European cars which have a stereo integral into the dash which is not easily removable, this car has a generic type stereo fitted, this meant it had tiny buttons, no steering column controls, and produced lots of scrolling messages about how many channels and watts it has which I find quite irritating.  There is a small numeric keyboard glued onto the dash (all cars in Israel have these, it’s a mandatory requirement by the insurance companies I believe)  and requires a four digit code to enable the engine to start, but the Kia I had although new doesn’t like starting first time, and needed the ignition off after a first attempt to get going.  This car is also a bit dated in styling as I think it’s a rehash of an older Hyundai model.

I think it took me two hours to get to Tiberias, this city named after a Roman leader is the main city in the Galilee region looks out towards the east side of lake and depends on tourism from foreign Christians for its economy.   When I came here before this town looked a bit shabby with the concrete hotels looking a bit reminiscent of a communist era, today these still are a bit of an eye sore but the place looks much smarter now.

Oddly enough it started to rain (remember rain is a rarity here) whilst driving through Tiberias although there is a great need for water as the Galilee (and the Dead Seas as well)  are desperately short, and where as the water is much welcomed I was surprised to see there were no drains or obvious gutter system so the water has no where to go, so the road had lots of surface water.   Hmm, me thinks a good engineer is needed to design a system to channel this to where it’s needed I reckon.

Next camping overlooking the lake…

Parts 1 – 2 – 3 – more soon…