The Great Wall

Our group for the Great Wall, from left to right - Zach, Ken, Hilary, Me with Mike behind, Brock, Gaz, Anna, Natalie and Charlie.

Although not in order, I think I need to start with the Great Wall. It was as spectacular and stunning as it looks in the photos, if not more. We paid a bit extra to take a four hour bus journey to a less touristy spot and it paid dividends. Other than the group of us who went together from our Hostel, we didnt really see that many other people for the entire walk. When I say walk, it is as far from a gentle stroll as you can possibly get. As Brock so gently put it - 'Great Wall? Its more like a huge staircase through a load of bloody big mountains' and he was right! The photos dont give justice to the sheer gradient of some of the steps. The total distance was about 10k, but not one single meter of that was on flat ground.It never dropped below about 30 degrees, there was no break in the sunshine and we didn't really have that much water to go around. However, it was still worth it just for the experience.

When we reached the end of our section of the wall, we had to cross a suspension bridge. Following that, we had a choice - carry on down the road for a furth 1k to the carpark, or jump on zipwire and shoot down the side of the wall and over a lake. It took me about 30 seconds to scrounge the £2 off Hilary before I was strapped in. This is a photo of me and a video I took whilst hurtling down the zipline...