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Published: September 5th 2014
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We arrived at Beijing train station around 8am and after following the crowds and the instructions from Sacha we were met by our new guide, a young girl who looked about 12 lol. Petite with long hair and glasses. Her name us Lunar and us an intern from Shanghai. We loaded our stuff into the waiting minibus and headed to the hostel. On the way Lunar explained the itinerary for our few days here.
We arrived at the hostel and had breakfast, showered and changed, put in laundry and nipped to the supermarket and trust and veg shop to buy supplies fervour trip to the Great Wall and just chilled out. We were leaving the hostel for the Great Wall at 1.30pm so many of us had lunch before we left otherwise it would be after 4pm before we ate again as the trip to the farm house near the wall would be serving us a late lunch, more like tea in my book. From the guest house we would be picking up our camping stuff and them have a 5 minute ride to the wall and the start of our adventure.
We loaded up
like pack horses with a tent between 2 people, Nitzan and I decided to share, sleeping bags, thermal ground sheet and thermal roll mats. We divided the items between the two of us. Franklin, John and Roman all hiked up together ahead of the main group led by me with Lunar brining up the rear.
It was a tough climb in places, most of it steep but some flatter bits. We wandered through the lush green vegetation and I hired a couple of flowers we have in the UK, a type blue bell and scabious and even oak trees! The ground was a bit slippery in places from previous rain fall.
Unfortunately the views were shrouded in mist and we were likely to get some rain. The hike took about 40 minutes and finally we reached the Great Wall! In the dragon hand book it says camp on the Great Wall, so before Lunar arrived were were trying to find even spots to pitch our tents amongst the rubble in this part of the wall which was crumbling and falling apart. However just as tents were being erected Lunar arrived and told us we
had to camp on the ground as it was not safe to camp on the wall due to the windy conditions which are experienced up there.
So we pitched our 2 man tents and threw in our belongings and closed up to keep things dry as it was pretty misty and murky and the chances of rain grew. The sun was setting but couldn't see it due to the cloud cover and the light was fading and the boys were set the task of gathering wood which was pretty difficult. The dragon groups go up there on a weekly basis, have a fire so it's getting more and more difficult to find wood without chopping a tree down.
The bits done good and we had enough to get the fire going and Jed was team leader in charge of our fire, we even put prodigy twisted fire starter on lol. We had all brought some alcohol so we all poured our drinks, settled down in front of the fire and started chatting and ended up playing a game of a Mafia (Roman introduced us this game and it's been a firm favourite since).
Part way through the game it started to rain so we headed for our tents for a few minutes and then came back out and huddled under the lean to shelter which was just off to the side of our camp. We stayed here for a while and then went back to the fire where we had to add more wood and we sacrificed one of our wooden stools lol. Again we sat and chatted until we all decided it wasting for bed as we had to be up very early to watch the sun rise over the Great Wall.
I was just heading off to sleep when I heard a load of commotion and from what I could gather Stuart had fallen over, I paid no attention initially as I thought it was a fuss over nothing. Then I heard the words broken nose and hospital! At this point I realised it was more serious and then I heard Stuart saying that he wanted me to go with him and was calling out my name in a bit if a panic. Thats when I realised I needed to get up go to him and
calm him down and that my night on the Great Wall had come to an abrupt end and I wouldn't get to see the sun rise.
After much debate and organising Tim and Roman volunteered to get Stuart down the mountain followed by Lauren who had attended to his injuries as she was a midwife but of course had day to day nursing skills and was a god send. Then there was me followed by Lunar who had notified her boss and called the farm house to arrange for a driver to pick us up and take us to the local hospital. We had torches and head torches so we could light our way back down. It was quite precarious and slippery as it had been raining. Goodness knows how the boys did it but they got Stuart down in one piece safe and sound and the car was waiting for us.
It took us about half an hour to get to the local hospital which was pretty big considering. First we went to the casualty department and waited for a doctor. Whilst this was happening Lunar went to check Stuart in. When the
doctor arrived I went to fetch her so she could translate. When we got back Stuart was very agitated and wanted to see a different doctor as he seemed very disinterested and was falling asleep, but he was the only doctor available. It was very quiet in the hospital and nothing like a Saturday night in a UK A&E department.
The doctor advised Stuart needed to go for an MRI scan to see if his Brian was ok as he had a headache and had concussion slightly. We walked over to the MRI building marked MRI strangely enough lol and had to knock on the door to be let in. Clearly we had woken up the machine operator bless him, well it was a slow night.
Stuart lay on the machine and we left the room whilst the scan was completed and then had to wait whilst he checked the scans, printed them off and gave Stuart the all clear re his head. Then we had to go and see a nurse in the same building but one level up, again we woke up someone, this time it was the girl on reception. The
nurse checked up his nose and cleaned it up slightly and advised he could have an X-ray done the next morning at 8am but we decided we would take him to the hospital in Beijing for the X-ray once we got back to the hospital.
We then went back to see the sleepy doctor who prescribed some medication and signed him out. We took all the receipts, medication and MRI scans back to the farm house, the driver had waited for us and been with us whilst we were at the hospital. Tim did his bit too helping to support Stuart in and out of the taxi and look after his wet shoes, and keep us all chatting and entertained.
It took about 30 minutes to get back to the farm house as it wasn't far from where we got picked up. We had all nodded off during the journey back. At the farm house we were given a room with a huge bed in it a couple of blankets and pillows so we all snuggled down and shared the blankets and pillows and I snuggled down between Tim and Stuart and we quickly
fell asleep.
Xxx
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