The Great Wall’ker

I’m sitting by the Great Wall now, looking to the South from a fairly high vantage point, I can see the tops of a lot of smaller hills in the distance.

The corn on the cob is ready to be harvested and the long leaves on the plants are dry. They make a pretty loud noise as the wind blows through them. It’s a pleasant soothing noise though.

Today has been a long day, and I am tired. As soon as the sun hides behind a higher hill to the West I will set up the tent. Autumn is definitely here. It gets pleasantly cool at night, but during the day the sun still does a good job of warming up this place.

I am not quite sure how to get past the mountains to the North and East. Following the Great Wall is out of the question as the mountains are very high and steep. Will get close to them tomorrow and then make a decision.

25 kilometers today

A few firsts today. For the first time ever I saw red peppers growing in a field. Naa har jeg vaert der pepper’n gror! Norwegian expression. A week ago, I was offered lots of chestnuts while walking. Today I saw farmers digging their peanut harvest out of the ground. I have never eaten freshly dug out of the ground peanuts, and they were crunchy and tasty! Another first today was watching farmers carefully harvesting cotton.

25 kilometers today, 16 kilometers yesterday

Got back to the Great Wall area at about noon, and after a hot meal started walking. It was very steep and there was dense foliage where I first tried to get on The Wall. I started fighting my way through the foliage and thorns. Suddenly a thorn went deeply into the front of my thigh. I tried to dislodge it carefully but part of it broke off, and stayed put in my thigh. It hurt quite a bit, which it also did when I tried to get it out with my fingers, without luck. The thorn was on a branch that had been cut off and was lying on the ground. That’s probably why it got past the guard given by my arms and two walking sticks.

I walked around a small top to try to join up with The Wall at the back. As I did this, I saw that only a hundred metres further on it went down a steep valley, and on the other side was a cliff I couldn’t climb. The alternative was more thorn-walking which I had had enough of. Headed for the valley to the South and bought some needles and a lighter.

I am at a basic guest house now, and have dug into my thigh with a couple of needles. It’s surprising how strong and elastic skin can be… After quite a lot of digging, I think the whole thorn is out, but will check again in a couple of days.

I’m sitting in a very nice waiting room in Qinhuangdao waiting for the bus to take me back to the Great Wall.

As you might have noticed, there has not been that much activity on this site lately and the map has not been updated while I have been out walking. This is because the main keyboard on my mobile phone has gone 250 as they say in China - meaning it is faulty. There has also been a technical problem on the web site. That problem is resolved, so from now on you should be able to follow my progress on the Great Wall Route page day by day.

The last day in Zunhua, I went to a China Mobile shop looking at mobiles with a full keyboard. They cost quite a lot of money. I got talking to one of the salespersons there and told her a bit about the walk. The day after I returned, having decided to get the phone. I was very surprised and grateful when the woman showed me a phone much superior
to the one I was planning to buy, and gave it to me!! Her husband had used the phone a short while but didn’t need it any longer. I was so surprised and offered to pay for it, but she would hear nothing of it.

So - a very big thankyou to Lily in one of the many China Mobile shops in Zunhua! You are a very generous person

This message is written on the Nokia E71 which her husband donated.

The last few days have been pretty wet. A cold wind also swept in from the North making them colder.

The definite highlight of the past days was going back to Panjiakou, which my brother, two friends and I visited in 1998. Panjiakou is a very special place as the Great Wall is submerged by water there as a result of the large reservoir. The whole of the old village called Panjiakou lies in ruins at the bottom of the lake, whilst the people that decided to stay on now live on the new shore by the reservoir.

Although this is all exciting, the most exciting part for me was to see if our friend from our visit in 1998 was still living there.

I hitched a boat ride from the Western shore of the lake, and before reaching my destination it was easy to see there had been a tremendous amount of development in the area. Large parts of the lake are covered with square frames and fish nets for cultivating fish (fiskeoppdrett). There were a lot of new buildings on the shores.

When I was dropped off, I headed for the house of our friend from 12 years ago. Just as I was about to shout if there were any people there, she stepped out. I recognized her straight away.  After a second, she took my hand, and led me to one of those picture frames with old pictures. And there was a picture of my brother, two friends and I together with her  family.

I never thought I would find a picture of us hanging in a Chinese home like that. It was quite moving. We sat down to a good ‘what has happened the last 12 years talk’. She had visitors, and was pretty busy preparing a meal for them.

Just about when my Chinese ran out, brother Jon called from Scotland, and had a good chat with her. I’m so happy it worked out as he had a busy schedule. A very happy moment and evening!

I was invited to join her visitors for the evening meal which had lots of juicy dishes. They were a lively bunch, and with a small traveller’s dictionary we had plenty to talk about.

As the main keyboard on the phone is out of order, I’m writing this on the numeric keyboard which is pretty time consuming. Will try to get a new, not too expensive, phone soon because otherwise this will take too long.

13, 18, 5, 7 and 18 kilometres the last days

I spent yesterday making and uploading pictures for the next stretch, and didn’t go to bed until 5am.

As I have decided to walk shorter distances the next few days, I waited until the afternoon before setting off.

Some crucial Autumn months are coming now where I need to get as far as possible. When my second winter along the Great Wall arrives, it is going to get very cold indeed.

The large keyboard on my phone has gone wonky. It skips some letters and triples others. Lately, you as a reader have not had daily reports for a long time. Because of the phone problem I am going to cut down on the frequency of these reports to prioritize sleeping, eating and walking. I don’t know how often the reports will be. If I can buy a new phone with a good keyboard they may be less often but longer.

13 kilometres today

Message to brother Jon. Ba gutta slå på brannmuren igjen igår. Hvis oppdatering ikke fungerer får vi se mer på det om ca 7 til 10 dager.

I returned from Beijing to base camp in Zunhua on Saturday. The bus ride was surprisingly fast and comfortable. No queues, no smoking inside the bus - all went to plan. I hope that is a good sign for the rest of my walk.

On Sunday I walked 15 kilometres by the Great Wall. It felt good to be back, and I set off up a steep and long hill on the Great Wall. After only a few minutes, I was gasping after air. Looks like the forced six weeks of rest have had quite an impact on my stamina. But I don’t think it will take too long to get back in super duper shape.

It felt good to have the Great Wall under my feet again. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky, and it got well over 30C. There was a slight wind and unlike July and August, the wind actually cools you down now. I had decided not to overdo things, and when I reached the construction site of a 8 lane motorway, I decided to walk on it to a place where I could get back to Zunhua. The guys working on the massive motorway said it went all the way to Shenzhen which is the next door neighbour of Hong Kong! I was impressed.

There have been some media articles lately about never ending queues on Chinese roads. With such a growth in the traffic and such a large population, it is hard to keep up with the road building. But China is probably the place on earth right now where most new roads are being built.

The day after the walk my foot, or big toe joint was more sore than usual. I have decided to wait until tomorrow to push on. Have been studying the maps for the next stretch. It will take me past a section of the Great Wall that my brother, two friends and I visited 12 years ago. The place is called Panjiakou and is very special because the Great Wall (and lots of small villages) have been submerged by water from a large dam. 12 years ago, we stayed a couple of nights at Panjiakou and made friends with a Chinese family. I hope they are still living there!

My agonisingly slow 6 week wait is hopefully coming to an end. I want to return to walking the Great Wall. The mending process was so slow the first four weeks, that I thought it might be something more serious than ‘just’ a fracture. Luckily, the foot has recovered a lot faster over the last two weeks.

The winter comes quickly here, and the area I will be walking during the last part of this walk is between North-Korea and Siberia. So the sooner I get going, the better.

I plan to return to the Great Wall this week, and test it with some real walking in proper Great Wall terrain.

The pictures under show slices of my foot from an MRI taken a month ago. As you can see - the foot is a fairly complex piece of machinery and in many ways I am very grateful that they have both done as well as they have. It’s a nice coincidence that today’s quote is:

The human foot is a masterpiece of engineering and a work of art.
Leonardo Da Vinci

I have added 8 new videos from January this year when I was walking close to the Yellow River. You can see the videos here on the Great Wall Route page.

The videos are located to the left of the current map view. Zoom out by clicking on the minus sign on the map and pull the map to the left to find the new videos. Click on the red camera icons to see them. Yellow icons are old videos.

To see exactly where the video was recorded, zoom in by clicking on the plus sign on the map. You can zoom in a long way, and the details on the map are often pretty impressive.