On a warm spring morning in 1984, Dong Yaohui and his friends Wu Deyu and Zhang Yuanhua carried military backpacks, put on military boots, and began a trekking on the Great Wall.
They set off from the old dragon head of Shanhaiguan, and then headed west towards the mountains of Hebei and the vast world of western China.
The three people thought about the journey ahead-they will walk for 17 months and span 8,850 kilometers. This will test their endurance and will also make them the first record-makers to measure the entire Great Wall with their feet.
This journey will not only change the lives of the three people, but also change the fate of the Great Wall itself, so that the Great Wall will be properly protected, and it will gain a respectable status like today.
Dong Yaohui, 62, recalled: “This is the first time that mankind has investigated the entire Great Wall. This is the first time that mankind has left a complete line of footprints. This is a journey of uphill and downhill without stopping.”
After 508 days of arduous trekking, on September 24, 1985, Dong Yaohui and his partners finally arrived at Jiayuguan, the end of the expedition to the Great Wall on foot. This is the first time to conduct a comprehensive and detailed site visit to the Great Wall. This is also the first complete footprint of the Chinese descendants on the Great Wall. Using the first-hand materials collected during the investigation on the way, they wrote the book "A Textual Research on the Great Wall of the Ming Dynasty", which was praised as a "historical work with feet."
Dong Yaohui finished his inspection of the Great Wall on foot, but began to trek forever on the Great Wall Road. For more than 30 years, Dong Yaohui has gone from walking the Great Wall to studying the Great Wall, from a hobbyist to a real Great Wall expert.
We believe you have the same dream to conquer the Great Wall on foot- the dragon. For this reason, we have designed treks up to 12-day to make you a real hero like Dong.
Please visit our dedicated Great Wall Adventure Club Website at www.greatwalladventureclub.com
William Lindsay, British, 63 years old, graduated from the University of Liverpool, England, majoring in geography and geology. He graduated from the University of Liverpool, England, majoring in geography and geology, and travelled to China in 1987 with a childhood dream. The walk along the Great Wall from Jiayuguan to Shanhaiguan took more than 160 days. It was the Great Wall that enabled him to meet his beautiful Chinese wife, and eventually allowed him to stay in China. He called himself the "Foreign Red Army" and began the "Long March" to protect the Great Wall.
The first time William knew about the Great Wall was in 1967, when he was still in junior high school. There were two books that he would use throughout his life, one was a Bible and the other was a map. The Bible was everywhere in England and did not interest William in the least, so he found a map.
"I saw China on the map, the Great Wall lies in the north of China, it is so beautiful. On the map I saw the beginning and end of the Great Wall, and I dreamed of one day riding my bicycle from one end to the other." William told the principal about this idea and the principal said that it was a great dream, but unfortunately it couldn't come true.
When William visited the headquarters of National Geographic magazine in Washington, D.C. in 1980, he bought a globe in their store, the Great Wall It's the only human building on the map. "There are no pyramids, no Taj Mahal, no other famous monuments."
"The Great Wall is not only the greatest building in the world, it's also a precious treasure to mankind, it contains a spirit." William didn't understand why some Chinese people didn't love their Great Wall instead.
"Over the years, my greatest achievement has been to make people realize that the Great Wall will eventually disappear if it is not protected," William said. Media reports have made more people, including some Great Wall experts, aware of the problem, and the government is beginning to confront it. "The government is very supportive of me, and that's important." In 2001, William registered the Friends of the Great Wall International Association in Hong Kong, which brought him closer to the Great Wall. By 2004, the association had secured steady sponsorship and the projects were running smoothly: they organise three to four litter picks a year! campaign, collecting and placing bins for the Wall, hiring local farmers to set up a Green Station for the Wall, and setting up green signs at the Wall's location. In 2001, William founded the International Friends of the Great Wall Association.
In 2001, William founded the International Friends of the Great Wall Association, which called for a "Mountain Promise" to "take the trash with us, not the trash". Throwing litter everywhere", and environmental slogans made into signs, placed on the Great Wall. Until now, William and volunteers come to the Great Wall every week to pick up litter, an average of more than 120 bags of litter per year. Under William's influence, his two sons have also joined the team to protect the Great Wall。
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