Started walking about nine o’clock. I had five and a half litres of Ice Tea, 8 eggs and some buns in addition to peanuts and some biscuits from Zhangjiakou.

I started at an empty water reservoir. They were repairing the dam which I walked over to get to the starting point. The ascent was long, hard and slow with little or no chance of walking beside the Great Wall.

When I was very close to the top, I saw darks clouds coming in from behind. I thought it was a small thunder storm similar to few days ago and quickly got off the Great Wall and found a small flat patch of ground. It was big enough for me to sit down and drape the tent over me like a poncho.

The rain took longer to come than I thought. It also lasted a lot longer – for two whole days. After lying in my tent poncho for 3-4 hours, I realized I had to set up the tent. It was getting very damp and cold. When the rain eased off a bit, I quickly set it up so that the flat patch was at the bottom of the tent.

This made life warmer, but I still could only use about half of the area of the one man tent! What I didn’t know at the time was that I would be stuck there for two whole days.
After half a day it felt like my personal torture chamber. I had looked around, and there was nowhere else to set up the tent. I slept very little and my legs and hips hurt after lying doubled up for so long. The bottom of the sleeping bag got wet, but I used the neoprene knee supports on my feet to keep them warm. If I stretched out all the way, I risked damaging the tent as the groundsheet slid down hill straining the stitches between the groundsheet and tent.

Thanks again to Alfredo who has purchased and sent several audio books about Julius Caesar to me. Many thanks! If I hadn’t had them I would have gone mad for sure!

Outside it rained, and there was plenty of thunder and lightning. The last day, there was a hailstorm to round things off with a proper finale.

4 kilometres today (26.5)