Australian adventurer Mark Scholinz is setting off on an arduous six month solo trek from Jiayuguan to Shanhaiguan along the Great Wall of China, covering some 4,000 kilometres and in the process helping to raise funds for struggling communities in the developing world.
Read Mark’s posts as he walks below | More about the trek
On the move.
Posted by Mark on Dec 10, 02:53 AM
It was great to be back on the wall today. Although the area is still quite mountainous, there has been a lot less scrub to contend with. It’s still bitterly cold though. On the way back to my last end point I passed a small river that was almost entirely frozen over. The ice must have been fairly thick since more then a dozen children from the local village were having a ball running and sliding around on the ice.
I’m happy to say that I didn’t fall apart on my first day back walking in four days. My muscles and...
Poverty and pollution
Posted by Mark on Dec 7, 09:56 PM
I had expected to be back on the wall by now. Unfortunately when I awoke yesterday morning the flu I’ve been battling had different ideas. Coughing up something that resembled a cross between jelly and a fur ball I quickly decided that I wasn’t going anywhere. I was bloody relieved to find that the mess I had coughed up didn’t sprout legs and start walking.
By 10am yesterday morning I was elated by my decision to stay in bed. A fierce wind that seemed to have originated from the North Pole blasted the area with such intensity that even the windows...
Cold teeth
Posted by Mark on Dec 5, 10:16 PM
I had to take today off from walking. The flu thing that I was recovering from had migrated into my chest and I was coughing and spluttering like a badly tuned engine. To make matters worse temperatures have plummeted over the past few days and even my teeth feel cold. Thick layers of ice lined the edges of creeks and where water ran down ledges large icicles had formed. In the sun it was quite pleasant once I had warmed up from walking but once I hit shaded areas…. brrrrr!
Feeling under the weather has had an impact on me mentally...
Jeepers creepers...
Posted by Mark on Dec 4, 12:46 AM
The past two days were fairly straight forward. I had to detour around a large dam that had submerged the wall. Long days but not much in the way of excitement.
I found myself singing the most ridiculous commercial jingles. ‘Jeepers creepers… where did you get those sneakers…’, ‘Aussie kids… are wheatbix kids’ and ‘I like aeroplane jelly…’ were amongst the most repetitive. Then I ‘graduated’ to country and western. ‘Desperado… you better come to your senses… you’ve been riding those fences for far too long’. After that I just gave up and walked in silence.
Today was a bit different....
Me in a mini skirt and boob tube??
Posted by Mark on Dec 1, 12:09 AM
Things are going well… relatively. Yesterday went pretty much as planned. The wall was tricky in places, especially in one location where it entered a valley. Here the wall basically went down in graduations of up to 2m. Think of stairs made for a 40m tall giant. I basically had to climb down using gaps in the stone work as foot and hand holds. At the end of the giants staircase I was confronted with thick brush, thorns and vines. At one point I was completely tangled and spent five minutes just trying to break free.
Once in the valley I...
276
days on the trail
4780
kms trekked
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