The Great Wall’ker

I started after noon today, and took a dinner at Mutianyu before walking. After a very short time I met a happy bunch of young people from Guam. An island in the Pacific. They are in China to promote tourism to Guam but had taken the day off to see the Great Wall.

Thanks a lot for the company! You were so much fun to be together with Lots of funny and cheeky comments that I like
Good luck with your promotion work in China!

Later I met two women selling water I spoke to them for a while and when one of them understood what I was doing, she kindly gave me two bottles of freezing cold water - much appreciated.

The other one said it was dangerous to sleep on the Great Wall because of animals. I asked her what animals she was referring to and she gesticulated a scary animal by coming towards me roaring and then strangling me. Looked like a cross between a bear and tiger. I’ll take my chances!!

The Great Wall was fairly steep but no problem to walk. After a hot meal, I started an ascent to the spot I’m at now. Steep drop on both sides of a fairly narrow ridge. Walking up the ridge is OK so far apart from a couple of stretches where there are large rocks and cliffs.

About 50 metres to the north along the ridge, I could see a potentially dangerous stretch. It looks like one has to cling on to a vertical rock to get past it. A very high cliff if one falls. At this time it was getting dark, so I walked down to find a small patch big enough to set up the tent.

Will investigate the stretch in good light again tomorrow and make a decision.

Lots of mosquitos here now. Nice to hear the sound of them when I’m behind a mosquito net..

5 kilometres today

As you can see, I’m in for a scorching experience. I will try to walk early and late, and spend the noon hours in the shade. When it is this hot, I drink a lot of fluids. I have to take the heat and distance to the next place into consideration when planning my route along the Great Wall, so I can restock water.

I will be doing some small additions to my equipment from now on too.

• Thin light weight ‘hotel slippers’, so I don’t have to wear the heavy boots in the evenings
• A poncho so I don’t have to pull out the tent every time a thunderstorm passes by
• The charger for my camera batteries so I don’t need to head for base camp to charge them
• Some shorts, so that I can wash my only trousers. I’ve already had a couple of meals without my shirt on, but don’t want to push my luck. I have seen Chinese doing the same as it is very hot now.