Our next two days were spent walking the wondrous Great Wall. We made our way 2 hours north of Beijing to our starting point at Gubeiko. This section of the wall is completly unrestored and very rough in places. Many sections did not have sides left, which made for some interesting hiking. The entire wall is up and down - I can honestly say we didn't see any flat sections of hiking for two days!!
This area was a strategic point in stopping the Mongolians crossing down to Beijing and also one of the most beautiful areas in northern China. We were lucky enough to be visiting in Autumn with the leaves changing and the countryside looking beautiful shades of orange, red and yellow. In many sections, the wall was covered in Autumn leaves and when the sun set and rose, the colours were tremendous.
Our first day of hiking was to be our longest at over 12 kilometres all up and down..... And much of the area was unstable rocks and bricks. There are 140 watchtowers in this section, which are the section points along the wall that are always visible in photos. There is a military camp along this section, which meant we had to leave the wall for about an hours' hiking and make our way towards Jinshanling.
Jinshanling is a very well preserved section of the wall and is a perfect spot to watch the sun set and see the beautifu colours reflect on the wall. The loveliest part of our days hiking was that we were alone for nearly all of it. Not another tourist in sight !
After a very long day, we had a great local dinner, and another opportunity for the boys to practice those chopstick skills. We then headed back to the first crumbling watchtower of the day to set up camp! We set up our tents and settled in for some silly, scary stories - what a place to do it?!? An early night was needed as we had more hiking to do tomorrow. It was very very cold - well it was for us 'tropical folk' and particularly when we were camping out. I think it got down to 6 degrees!
A very early start - 5.30am to watch the sunrise and pack up the tents and we were on the rode to our next starting point - Huanghuacheng which is not open to the public and you have to buy tickets to access this area. WOW, this was another spectacular section of the Wall - and super super steep !! It really did just go straight up and in areas we were crawling, as it was so steep.
We only did 6 km this day but some of the wall was really crumbling and made for challenging hiking. This area is really really beautiful and, once again we were completely along while hiking which really made the experience !
This is a MUST do if you every get the chance. There are sections of the Wall that suit all abilities and the sections we did was very tough - but so very very worth the effort. And camping out for the night was also fabulous!
Apologies for how many photos there are....... I just wanted to put them ALL in.....
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| Jack and Max look SO little here... running on the wall |
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| sunset over the wall |
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| our tent for the night |
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| scary stories in the tent |
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| Jinshanling at Sunset |
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| nearly to the top of Huanghuacheng - we started at the water !!! |
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| our Watchtower that we slept in |
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| we loved the Fall leaves |
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| wow we were up high ! and it was cold ...... |
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| the older section of the Wall - unrestored |
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| showing how high the actual wall is ! |
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| When nature calls |
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| it was a longggkggg walk |
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| you can see wall on every hill top ! |
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| a moment of reflection for Max (or exhaustion) |
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| hurry up you two ! |
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| we made it !! |
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| check these out ! |
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| our watchtower for the night |
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| Up, up, up ! |
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| that is Mike nearly at the top |
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| the boys with our guide Henry |
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| and we are on the final stretch down..... |
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| these steps were not made for big feet ! |
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