On our eleventh honeymoon day we went to see Yehudia Canyon in the Golan Heights, it was one of the best places we have ever been to for a hike. Yehudia is also one of Israel’s nature reserves and includes the ancient village of Yahudia, a canyon with water running through it, water falls, water pools suitable for swimming and plenty of plants.
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We first went to the reserves office for instructions; we received a map and had to carry 3 liters of water per person. In the hot weather of Israel drinking plenty of water is a must. Near the office we saw a large black snake that disappeared into the bushes. Later we had to leave a note on our car’s window with our details: names, time of departure, trail and cell phone number. This way if we’re not back on time, they would know that something had happened to us and would look for us. The trail we took was over 4 hours long.
The trail first lead us first to Yehudia village. Yehudia village is an old Syrian village built on the remnants of an ancient Jewish town. The Jewish town was there more than 2000 years ago and had a synagogue in it.
In the pictures you can see the houses built of the local black stone.
Later we went down to the canyon. From the top we could see the canyon and the first waterfall.
It was a very steep down hill walk.
Then we reached the first waterfall, which was very high and beautiful.
There were a mother and son bathing there. In our hikes through Israel we often saw religious Jews, men and women that would swim in the cold water with their cloths on for modesty reasons.
We continued walking in the canyon along Yehudia Creek; many times we had to cross the creek from one side to the other on the rocks.
Sometimes we had to climb higher above the creek.
Walking through the canyon was just breathtaking. So beautiful, so quiet – all we could hear were the sounds of the water and the birds, and very important: the plants and the canyon provided plenty of shade in a hot sunny day!
On the way we saw some water snails.
The best part – Going down to the pools
As we continued walking we reached another big waterfall that fell into a big pool about 10 meters bellow.
In order to continue, we had to go down a long ladder into the deep-water pool and then swim to the other side of the pool. We were prepared for this since we had read about it before. 
Thamara put on her bathing cloths and went down first. The water was cold! Later, Ilan took off his cloths and wrapped every thing including his camera and cell phone in many plastic bags and placed them in his backpack. Then he went down the ladder. When he reached the water he tried to swim but his bag was too heavy to stay above the water! We also had our water bottles and lunch in the bag. So he called Thamara for help. Thamara swam back to Ilan, then we lifted the bag together with one hand and used our other hand and legs for swimming.
It was a great adventure! There was another smaller water pool to cross, this time by foot on the sharp slippery rocks.
Our bag was wet but very little water has entered the first layers of the plastic bags! We dried our selves, put on dry cloths and were ready for lunch.
While eating we enjoyed watching a group of travelers trying to figure out how to get down the same ladder and cross the deep water pool.
After lunch we continued walking in the beautiful canyon, then we had to climb up again to get out of it, went to our car and drove back to our zimmer in Hadnes to enjoy another honeymoon evening.
