The Woods on the Great Wall of China
China Diary: 2013
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Day 6: Wednesday, 29th May
The Big Wall
A big day out to the big wall. This is one of the China highlights that we have all been looking forward to. Jetson has been calling it the "big wall of China" which is very cute, we found is all calling out that by the end of the day. We left at 9 am for the Mituanu section of the wall about an hour and a half drive away. We opted for a larger more luxurious vehicle for the trip, which made it a more pleasurable one for us and the kids. Casper must have liked it as he slept most of the way there.
This section of the wall is less touristed than the main section, but we were still surprised about the lack of people there. Don't get us wrong there were lots of people, but not as many as we expected after people talked it up.
Olive on the wall
We decided on a cable car ride up to the wall, with a toboggan ride down. They suggested that it was about an hours walk between the two, and mostly down hill. Although, while carrying two kids, we expected that that may take a little longer! The ride up was short but scenic, then the stairs up to the wall seemed tiring enough.
We started our journey along the section of wall enjoying the amazing scenery of spectacular mountainside. The terrain is so green and so rugged, it makes you ponder how hard the task of building this was. The wall itself is built along the ridge edge, dotted with many guard towers that you can explore. Even to think that this small section that we are traversing is a tiny part of the whole thing, amazing to consider the scale of it all. Casper loved it and just kept going and going, Jetson for many parts of it, and Olive also stayed a few steps ahead of us all leading the way.
Clare and Casper finishing the toboggan ride down
The long toboggan ride down was a highlight for the boys, especially Jetson, who wanted to go faster on the ride with dad. Casper went with mum, while Olive had to go with a stranger, because minimum age to ride is 10 - which they neglected to tell us when we purchased tickets at the bottom.
We stopped for ice cream, coffee and beer while trying to avoid the tourist trap shop keepers, before getting our ride back to the hotel.
An amazing day out.
We thought the kids would crash out early after such an exhausting day, but it was a challenge to get them to bed as usual. Once they were finally asleep, Clare went out to pick up some Chinese takeaway! It may have been partly due to us being so hungry, but the food she brought back was fantastic. We don't get this quality Chinese food back home.
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