Today I started on the detour to bring me to Zhongwei in the Ningxia province. As mentioned yesterday, the Great Wall probably continues on the eastern side of the Yellow river in a northerly direction, but this area is so mountainous and remote that I don’t see it fitting to be the first to attempt walking the stretch on this long hike. The walk will now continue on roads until I pick up the Great Wall again.

Today was good and the average speed was faster than when walking the Great Wall in hilly terrain. I was pretty exhausted after yesterday, so took it slightly easy today with ‘only’ 19 kilometres. I managed to follow small dirt roads that had virtually no traffic on them for a fairly large portion of the day, but soon I will have little choice than to follow the main road leading to Ningxia province.

I might take tomorrow ‘off’ to get things sorted on this page + pictures, make orders for some winter equipment, send pictures to people Jon and I have met along The Wall and so forth. Even though this project is primarily about walking the Great Wall, there is quite a lot of administration. And it feels good to have those things out of the way to enjoy the walking more. I might also take time to visit the Yellow River Stone Forest of Gansu.