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Two guys from Lancashire in
North West of England have just got back from trekking along the Great
Wall of China and in the process, raised over £5,000 ($8,000) for The
Smiles Foundation.
 Paul
Swithenbank from Kirkham and Stephen Lawton from Wrea Green
arrived home late on October 11th, having completed a challenge that
saw them undertake 67 miles trekking the demanding and rough upland
terrain in just five days.
The Great Wall of China,
one of the world's cultural heritage sites, has long been the symbol
of the Chinese nation. It is one of two man-made constructions that
can be seen clearly from space. Spanning a total of 3,330 miles (5,660
kilometres) it starts on the banks of the Yalu River and stretches
towards the Qilian and Tianshan Mountains in the west. It was
originally constructed to keep out Nomadic tribes who threatened
China's northern frontier.
Paul and Stephen were part of
a group of 27 people from across England, Scotland and Ireland who
were trekking sections of the Great Wall with the organisation Charity
Challenge.
"The
challenge started for me before I even got to China in fund-raising,"
said Paul Swithenbank. Physical
preparation for the trek included endurance training and running.
Whist holidaying in Sicilly he also managed to continue his training
by trekking Mount Etna. Also, as they live so close to the Lake
district National Park, both of them managed to get some hill walking
in as part of a series of
planned preparation walks.
The trekking began
on Monday October 5th and
continued every day until Friday. The last day before flying home was
spent in Beijing, which seemed a world and several generations away
from the rural villages and primitive farm holdings they had seen
while trekking the wall. The two flew back to England on Sunday,
October 11th.
Each
day they would leave their accommodation in basic mountain lodges and
set about a trek that covered anything from 10 to 20 kilometres. The
first day saw them trek in the Black Dragon Pools National Park, the
next at the Gubeikou Gateway, where the Ming Dynasty had added many
defence installations along the wall.
The 12 kilometre walk was
particularly challenging given the number of steps they had to walk on
the wall. "I was
texting home saying that I had done the 'Stairway to Heaven' on the
Tuesday but it was nothing compared to the Thursday,"
laughed Paul. That trek took them on the longest day's walk of the
challenge, along steep, crumbling staircases and ruined watch towers
partly along the original unreconstructed wall.
Paul added There
are very few visitors to this part of the wall from Simatai to
Jinshanling but the rewards were the views - on a clear day the
visitor can see the best part of 80 miles across the mountains. It
wasn't only the views that were memorable. The wall overlooks small
mountain villages and we had the opportunity to visit with the people
who lived there. "We spent the majority of the five days in the
country. The walk took us down into the villages and we got the
opportunity to see rural life. 70 per cent of China's population are
made up of the farming community, thats over 700 million people. It
is a rural way of life with basic amenities
said Paul.
China was marking a national
holiday while we were there so the children were not at school.
Despite that, some 20-plus children met the trekkers in one of the
villages and ended up playing a game of basketball with them in their
school playground. Paul added "It
was great fun. The children went from being very shy to enjoying the
fun. We did a whip-round in our trek bags for a spare sweet or
chocolate bar for them. One of our guides distributed them and not one
child opened the bar. They put them in their pockets for later!
 "Our
guide did not encourage us to give donations or sweets unless we did
it through guides. We were told of a slogan -'do not make our children
of today the beggars of tomorrow'. If you do it in a respectful way,
it is seen as a gift not as a way of surviving and making a livelihood
out of it," said Paul.
"The
other challenge was not only the walk but the rural living in lodges,"
said Paul. Of the trek, he added: "It
was a humbling experience".
"We
have got such comfortable lives but we were going out and living in
lodges that have very, very basic amenities and we did not know what
was ahead of us in respect of all that,"
said Paul.
One of the days a farmer
allowed them to eat their lunch sitting at his small holding where he
grew corn that is used to make oil and even showed them round his
modest home. A lot of people speak good English, even in the rural
villages. "We found people
to be very generous with their information and very open to getting
their photograph taken".
Returning to Beijing for the
final night of their stay was like returning to the 21st century. "It
was like opposite sides of a coin,"
said Paul. Highlights included the Olympic stadium (Birds Nest),
Temple of Heaven, Tiananmen Square, and the Old Imperial Palace.
Reflecting on the
experience, they both enjoyed the collaborative effort of trekking
together. "We were working
as a team we all supported each other. We were doing it as a group
rather than individuals.
A Brilliant Experience.
Sincere thanks from The
Smiles Foundation to Paul Swithenbank and Edward Stephen Lawton for
their efforts on behalf of the Nursing Home Project, due to built in
Romania as part of the
Joint
Facility of Love in 2010. |
