Monday 31 March

Another helicopter came in at about 2:00am. Busy place.
We headed off at 8:00 as usual and went west, first through desert, but gradually it got greener and before long there were fields and forests. This was the Negev, once a barren wilderness but with government initiatives like town planning and water recycling, it is a food bowl.

We were to spend the day around Beer-Sheeva, but our guide, who is an ex police inspector,  had other ideas. We skirted the city and went to find an Anzac memorial from WW1. From that vantage point we could look across to the houses of the Gaza Strip,  one of the most dangerous parts of the world, but safe at the moment. The GPS said that we were only 880m from the border.

 
So we went back to Tel-Sheeva, a mound of successive settlements from way back when (getting a bit lost with these) and climbed through a water tunnel wearing hard hats. Then into the city for lunch.
 

After we  went to the Park of the Australian Soldier which has a commemorative section and a couple of very good big playgrounds. We finished our day at the Commonwealth War Cemetery.