The Great Wall

After a 4 & half hour coach journey we arrived at the Great Wall, our tour guide informed us that he would be waiting for us at the other end (we saw him nicking off through the hills for a short cut). We decided to take the scenic route in the form of a cable car (saves 30mins apparently). Well we didn't want to be the last to finish did we? As we looked out on the coming journey, it looked no less than EPIC! (in slow motion). When we got to the top, ready to start our walk, some of the others had already passed us by (save 30mins my eye!)
After passing the 1st tower and on approach of the 2nd we realised this was going to be harder than we thought. The pathways went from derelict to sometimes non existent, with almost a 70 degree incline to some of the towers. Where the towers were a mere ruin we were forced to take the dangerous cliff edge side walk. There was so much rubble & grit lying around on the ground that Bobbi slipped and fell three times, the most amusing one was right after I had just warned her to be careful not to slip (Bobbi: I wasn’t warned against wearing high heels...hee!).
It was pretty scary at times. We later read that the Simatai section of the wall was not for the faint hearted.
During most of our trek we were thinking to ourselves… I'm hungry… Oh and "Look at the positive side, we get through this (alive) we never have to do this again". The locals on the other hand did this every day, scattering themselves at each of the towers situated along the wall, selling drinks, books and T-shirts.

Each step we took across the wall, the scenery was breathtaking. We paused on many occasions for photie opportunities. We even spotted a snake, i only caught the tail end in the photie tho - it’s a shame we can't post them all.
The latter half of the wall just before we reached the suspension brigde was the restored section - which is what we were expecting the rest of it to be like, But the rawness of the wall sure does give you an edge to the trek. Literally!

It didn’t help that we had last seen food at 6am that morning, and were trekking off just fluids (bless the locals selling it at rip off prices). Our legs had turned to jelly and we had just reached the road that we so solemnly believed was the end and at it awaited a restaurant or food stall- we could've eaten anything that moved at this point.
We don’t see any of the team or guide and the locals selling more fluids direct us further along, where we spot our tour guide.
At last, the end! ……..Yeah right. We discover that there is another 30 minutes walk which lies ahead OR… we could take the zip line route.
On a normal day such death risking activities would be on the 'certainly not' list. After such a long walk however, both Bobbi and I were pretty much fighting to get into our harnesses so we could get to the end fast. As we went down on this thing we both screamed like little girls.
There was a boat waiting for us at the end - (It felt just like the Milk Tray ad), After the boat pulled up the opposite side of the what looked like civilisation. We managed to hobble along and drag ourselves in to the Café heavily sponsored by the Lonely Planet guide (as they had a huge banner hanging outside that you couldn’t even miss from the moon!) And stuffed ourselves for China!!!