Few things take the title "great". The Great Escape, Alexander the Great, Great Britain - the Greatest, and of course, the Great Wall of China. We flew up from Hanoi on Saturday, dosing up heavily on lemsip and cold remedies on the plane just in case the Chinese officials decided on medical testing us for Swine Flu, we were scared they may find a tiny sniffle and not let us in. Customs cleared we headed into the smog of Beijing and a little jaunt to Tiannamen Sq and a lovely dinner in Grandma's Kitchen next to the Forbidden Palace and then early to bed to prepare for a two day trip to the Wall.

Our group of 7 (myself and Jo, Carol and Janice - AUssie Mother and Daughter -, Tammy from Canada, and a Kiwi couple Katie and Luke) set out yesterday morning early with our lovely guide Rita, first to the Ming Tombs and then on to the Wall in Jinsling. We hiked a short one hour and got a feel for what was to come the next day. After a home cooked meal with Mr Sun (sp?) we headed up to our camp spot for the night: A Great Wall Watchtower. We set up our sleeping mats and bags as teh stars began to shine, and soon worked out that we would be lucky enough to have a full moon. We could not have planned it better. We turned in pretty early but none of us could sleep so we went for a late night hike a couple of watchtowers up and then back to a pretty good nights sleep like no other.

We woke at sunrise, what an amazing view! We hiked to the 8ks to Simtai, which was an incredibly challenging hike along some of the roughest parts of the Wall but it was a thoroughly amazing two days.

Again photos proving complicate so they are at: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=123422&id=613391326&l=c4d2dd0591