The Great Wall

---

I thought that now I have some spare time that I would go and revisit some of the places we have visited and describe our trip in a little more detail.

The Great Wall was the highlight of the Beijing stay. Awe inspiring even though we only saw a very small section of it - to think about how many kilometres of it that was built and where it was built - it is truly an amazing wonder of the world. Not that it is one long wall. We learnt both from our guides and from a documentary on sbs before we left that sections of the wall were built at varying times by varying emperors over quite few hundred years. Something that we didn't learn from the documentary but Ding our guide explained to us was that it was mainly built to keep the rabbits out - something the Australians on the bus found very amusing but that the South Africans and Pommies on the tour just didn't get for some reason! Somehow I think that that the enemies that they were trying to keep out were a bit bigger than rabbits!

I don't know about Greg but I was overwhelmed emotionally to be actually climbing on the wall. It was a fabulous experience and something that I will remember as a "once in a lifetime" one. We climbed together and Greg's knee's held out pretty well - I could have climbed further (well maybe...) but we climbed as far as we could and experienced it with as much awareness as possible - what I mean is that there was so much to take in - the steps were very uneven, some high, some short so you had to watch every step, there was so much to see as you were climbing and as you got to one tower and you thought, this must be near the top, you looked out and there was more wall rising up ahead of you again, the drops from the sides were sheer in places, built high on ridges and from every tower there was a different view - totally amazing.

Coming down was an experience - thank heaven for the metal rail as I used it to lean my bottom against and came down almost sideways - easier on the knees and a lot of weight supported by the arms - all that yoga work paying off!! Unfortunately the rails were built for Chinese height so Greg couldn't take advantage so he bore the brunt of the downward climb with his knees. I think I said in my earlier post that you just didn't realise how steep it was until you came down - there were a few places where I couldn't hold a railing (because of people coming up!!) and that was a bit scary.

We had more than enough time at the Wall and I highly recommend getting there early if anyone ever goes - the crowds as we were leaving were just awful - would have made climbing up quite a stressful experience instead of the wonderful one it was.

---

Photos

The Great Wall
Having a break from climbing - photo a good excuse for a break anyway!