Days 3 and 4 and even more challenging terrain ahead!

Well we survived days 1 & 2 and after an uncomfortable night sleeping on a board with a very thin mattress and a rice filled pillow I got up feeling extremely stiff and uncomfortable!! But after some very nice porridge and a couple of painkillers I was ready to take on The Wall again.

After a steep climb up over more very rough ground the first part of the wall was mainly ruins and the paths very narrow to the side of it.

 Miles and miles of ruined wall as far as the eye could see, it was also extremely hot, I was drinking 3 litres of water a day and sweating buckets, I think for every litre I drank I must have sweated 2 litres!!!
 

The views were incredible layer upon layer of green mountains stretching away into the distance, it was also a bit hazy so they took on a very mystical quality.

The stone in the picture below
marks where 3 Provinces meet, the wall in the picture to the left is where we've come from and on the right in the photo behind me is the renovated wall and the direction we are heading in, although it looks nice a smooth it was still not possible to walk actually on the wall as some of it was very steep and just sloping with no steps so we had to stay to the side.

A welcome break in the shade!!

And just in case we thought the walking wasn't exercise enough there was some outdoor gym equipment to stretch our muscles a bit more!!!

 

Finally civilisation...... by the way all those empty beer bottles weren't ours!

 

 

 

Warming up ready for another days hard slog!

Running repairs on Sara's shorts. The kit list said Duct Tape you never know what it might be useful for!

The locals are keeping an eye on us.




And there it was again the wall stretching out in front of us disappearing over the horizon!








And just for a change more steps!!!!!!!

 And more towers!!!!

Very narrow paths in places with sheer drops either side, steps so worn you could hardly tell the difference between them and the rocks next to them.

Leon one of our 'leaders' setting a very bad example, there was a sheer drop the other side of that window.

 This was really hard going and there are no shortcuts. Thankfully some of the time we were in the shade.

 
 Although the wall looks reasonably sound here we weren't able to wall on it and the crack in the tower is an indication why.

 This part was very narrow in places and obviously in a very bad state of repair the steps were particularly bad and it needed all our concentration to make sure we didn't slip.

These are all different towers although they all look the same. It was a little bit more hazy so thankfully not quite so hot some of the day at least.

Oh dear the Paparazzi have caught up with me again!! Hopefully it means we're nearing civilization but I think there's still a long way to go.

 

 If I see another step I think I'll scream!!! Finally the last tower of the day what a lovely sight. Only problem is accommodation is still a further mile away.