When Tomer Milo’s father asked her what she wanted for her bat mitzvah, she told him to go take a hike. And she meant it.
While it is not unusual for 12-year-old girls in the diaspora to ask to tour Israel after their bat mitzvah celebrations, it is rare for an Israeli girl to forgo the chance of a trip abroad in order to travel around the country — on foot.
Tomer and Udi Milo, residents of Ness Ziona, have just put heart and “sole” into a 51-day, 558-mile hike.
The idea started to take shape about 18 months ago when Udi — an archeologist, tour guide and musician — took Tomer on a trip along the northern section of the Israel Trail. During the hike they came across a group of students who told father and daughter of their plans to cover the whole trail from Dan in the north to the southernmost part of the trail in Eilat.
“That’s what I want to do for my bat mitzvah,” Tomer told her father.
Rather than ignore the new direction his daughter was taking, Udi Milo decided they should go the whole way together. The two of them began to map out their course of action, with the aid of experts from the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel, and set their plans into motion.
Some two months ago, after Udi had worked overtime and saved up enough vacation days, they began their trip, relying on their previous legwork and armed with backpacks, hats, water bottles, maps, binoculars and cell phone. They first went from the center of the country to the south, then from the north to the center, most of the time on foot.
Tomer might have had her dad with her, but she did not have many other comforts of home. They spent most nights in sleeping bags under the stars or in their small tent. As an occasional treat, they sometimes stayed in tourist facilities along the trail or in the homes of relatives and friends who live close to it.
“We hiked in the rain and cold but also during the spring when everything started blooming incredibly,” Tomer told reporters on her return. “We saw wild gazelles, foxes, lizards in all sorts of colors, kingfishers, cranes and a wolf.”
Although already a seasoned hiker and nature lover long before her 12th birthday, Tomer says there was something very special about this trip.
“Only someone who has spent a long time in nature can appreciate the experience,” she said. One of the highlights was hiking by the light of the full moon in the Mitzpe Ramon area.
Tomer, clearly in a class of her own, missed a lot of school days during her travels. “That’s a sensitive point with me,” her father admitted, but promised that she had already caught up and noted that the trip was an education in itself.
The journey also strengthened the bond between father and daughter.
And she came back with a message for her peers: Stay close to home.
“I don’t know why kids want to go abroad when we have such a beautiful country,” she said.