The China Journal - Day 4

"You have to move along more quickly," our tour guide says as he sits perched atop the crumbling remains of a watchtower. "You've only come one-fifth of the way."

I look back and I'm shocked at how little we've come in the time we've spent here and it comes as no surprise. This is the China you hear of so rarely. Sublime valleys of lush green give way to immense peaks that jut from the earth as if they've been punched out from the ground by a giant fist. The sky, a brilliant blue and dotted with billowing clouds, feels so big and so close that it it seemingly appears just beyond one's reach. We've spent so much time taking photographs and basking in the amazing landscape that surrounds us that we've forgotten the fact that we still need to hike another nine kilometres.

Hounded by the ever-present hawkers selling water, Coke and beer (along with the ubiquitous "I Climbed the Great Wall" T-Shirts), we are otherwise alone, as the tourists along this ten-kilometer stretch of the Great Wall are few and far between.

The Wall snakes along the ridges and peaks of the mountain range ahead of us and disappears into the horizon. The going is hard as we traverse steep inclines of crumbling stone and precarious ledges that sink into the steep hills of the valley below. But we make it, and after four hours in the hot sun, beer has never tasted so good.