In the beginning half of July, fellow adventurer Adam Ota and I finally embarked on a trip we had planned since before the brief war with Iran at the end of June. Naturally, due to the circumstances, our rekindled adventures had to be put on hold, until further notice. So it was with much anticipation that we got into our respective motor vehicles and met at the destination of our choosing, the Sharon Beach Nature Reserve.

Much thought went into picking this location: it wasn’t terribly far away for either of us; neither of us had visited the place prior; and it was reported to have some sand dunes on the kurkar clifftops which could very well provide some fun creatures that, ordinarily, we would have to travel some distance to see. We met up in Kibbutz Ga’ash at the dirt parking lot about two hours before sunset and began to explore our surroundings, starting with the butterfly-rich vegetation beside a dried pond. There wasn’t much else to see there, so we navigated our way to the nature reserve entrance through a kibbutz perimeter fence.

We took a liking to the place almost immediately, the calm sand paths crisscrossing the coastal foliage. It reminded us of other places that we had been before, such as the dunes at Yavne – a popular haunt of old. The faunal diversity wasn’t in its prime that late afternoon, with just a white-breasted kingfisher and the distinct calls of a turtledove.

But then the path led to a hidden U-shaped pond, and biodiversity got more interesting. The western half of the pond opened up before us like a page out of a romanticised Victorian adventure novel. A lone stilt chided us noisily as we intruded on the cloistered paradise, warning the other waterfowl of our sudden, and rather undesired, appearance.

A handful of startled sandpipers flew away, as did the noisy stilt, leaving us to explore the quaint little pond in relative isolation. Much to our surprise, the “beach” part that we walked into was not made of sand or pebbles, rather a morbid collection of old, decaying snail shells. Thousands, if not millions, of tiny white shells formed an attractive-looking area, at least until closer scrutiny. But overall, the pond was delightful and I fantasised about bringing a trailcam to see what kind of fauna is wont to visit. Maybe one day…

From the hidden pond we explored the kurkar ridge, making our way to the stabilised dunes overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. After a nice look at the coastline stretching out below us, we left our vantage point up on the cliff and continued exploring the sandy trails. At some point, we found ourselves on the Israel National Trail, the tri-coloured trail marker signs rusted from the salty sea breeze.

With not much to see from a faunal point of view, we decided that we should spend the bulk of the remaining daylight exploring a bit inland. This proved to be a wise decision as we encountered some jackals as soon as we reached an abandoned golf course beside the kibbutz’s cemetery. Our further explorations didn’t fully justify our deviation from the nature reserve, so we headed back to the coastal cliff to watch the sunset.

As expected, the sunset scenery was quite picturesque from on high. The kurkar cliffs that line the coast, a sharp rise in elevation rising up to 50 metres from the narrow strip of beach. In fact, two weeks after our adventure the Israel Nature and Parks Authority issued a warning about falling cliff chunks endangering visitors to both beach and cliff.

While we stood on high, looking out over the expanse, we noticed that there were two young men fully disrobed, lounging languidly in the warm sand. It was quite an unexpected sight, but perhaps they were just confused as to where the official nudist beach is – actually a bit further up the coastline.

A full moon slowly rose behind us, and while we waited impatiently for darkness to settle, we shared a snack of some mini kabanos sausages. Once sufficiently dark, when the creatures of the night were presumed to have left their hidey-holes, we flicked on our flashlights and began traipsing around. I decided to start with the UV flashlight, its purple-blue light dancing over the sand and vegetation underfoot. It kind of felt like cheating as I spotted one scorpion after another with the greatest of ease. These were presumably all African fattail scorpions, but none of the evening’s specimens allowed for a good enough photo required for proper identification.

While I was finding scorpions, Adam slipped off another way with his regular flashlight. Suddenly there was a cry and Adam told me to come quickly – he had found a snake! This was no ordinary snake, it was a nicely-sized javelin sand boa, a snake species that we had been keen on seeing for years and years. Despite being relatively common, each and every attempt of ours failed and it became a source of frustration for us. Now, thanks to Adam’s keen eyes, a beautiful sand boa was now laying peacefully in the sand before us, waiting for us to get our fair share of photos.

While some of Israel’s snakes are venomous and all should be regarded as potentially dangerous without proper knowledge in identification, the javelin sand boa is a very mild mannered member of the boa family (related to anacondas and other constrictors), and not dangerous to humans in the slightest.

After a quick photo shoot, we put the sand boa down and let it escape into the shifty sand. It was quite amazing watching it slither so efficiently into the sand, making us wonder how many more sand boas were safely buried around us. Elated with this finding, we kept on searching for more wildlife, and found not very much for the next while.

It was only once we started heading back for the cars that we found a Middle East tree frog in the parking lot, most unexpectedly. There was also a wedding taking place at the event hall adjacent to the lot, which filled the warm summer night air with the sound of music.

Before bringing the trip to an end, Adam suggested we take one last look at the butterfly-rich vegetation beside the dried-up pond that we had explored in the very beginning. It turned out to be an excellent idea, as we found countless tree frogs all over the thorny thistle plants. It was decided there and then that a return trip was needed, but sometime later on in the winter, or wet season. Hopefully that can happen this winter, but, as always, time will tell.