Day 5 – Gubeikou Gateway – Wednesday
What a full and incredible day. We left our second lodge and drove for a bit to get to the starting point of our longest walking day.
Along the way, our fantastic local guide Chris (Western name inspired by Coldplay) gave us his usual slightly rambling but always fascinating run down on Chinese life and history. He tells us every day all about Chinese history, his life, his fiancée, his family, and what’s happening in modern China. I came here knowing almost nothing and couldn’t ask for a better way to get an insight into modern China. Fascinating.
We made our way through a little village and waiting for us were a trio of Chinese women (the local farmer’s wives) with backpacks on. This is a regular occurrence apparently. They find out when the groups are coming and follow and offer to carry backpacks and sell touristy things (calendars, fans, fridge magnets, etc) to us at the top. We were all told how to politely decline what they were offering and we got into our big circle and started our now regular morning warm up. Always amusing. I’ve had a signature hip rotation move named after me (thank you LAMDA) and it makes a regular appearance.
It was a bit of upward winding to find the wall and once we got there, we settled into our now familiar walking routine. Chris, our local guide walks up ahead. Usually he’s followed by a first wave of trekkers, quite often the same people. The group then spreads out a bit and finally at the back is Jason (our other local guide). Penny is our fearless leader and she makes her way back and forth, making sure everyone is OK, helping with blisters and tricky parts of the wall as we go. We go up, we go down, we go across and then it starts again. There will be a watchtower every 20 minutes or so and we quite often stop to regroup or catch our breath or have a snack.
And so it went today. The weather today was the best yet, clear blue skies and sunshine with clear views for tens of miles. At every peak you could see just how far this wall extends which truly boggled the mind. The scale of this wall is hard to get into your head, when you see how high it is and how long it is and then you see it extend as far as the eye can see and then you realise that it’s 6,000 km long. A human achievement on a truly epic scale.
At one of the watchtowers, we climbed to the roof and had a snack. Chris took a series of pictures of each of us jumping in the air. With his position and his lens, the pictures looked hilarious, like we were jumping over the wall. We took a few more creative group shots and then made our way back down and onto the wall.
I needed a pee, so I turned back to I find a private spot on the other side of the tower and Penny gave me a bit of a shove and said, “No. We have to go.”
This was weird and out of character for Penny so I wondered what was going on. I joined the others and we made our way down the next stretch. I turned round and saw that Dean and Sarah were standing together on the roof still. They’ve been together for 9 years and then it hit me, he’s proposing!
I whipped out my camera and grabbed a couple of shots from a distance just in case I was right. I was right! A couple of watchtowers later, we stopped for lunch and the two of them showed up with a bottle of champagne and big smiles. Everyone erupted in cheers.
I’m not finished with this blog entry but we’ve just passed some wifi so I’m uploading.
c
