Great Wall of China
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In 2016 I sailed the 75 day Pacific Cruise whilst working on the Sun Princess. We travelled from Australia, north towards China, to Japan, up to Russia, Alaska, down the west coast of America, across to Hawaii and The French Polynesia, over to New Zealand, to the Pacific Islands and back to Australia. It was an epic cruise as I'm sure you can imagine and I would LOVE to do it again. Seeing these places filled me with such a sense of adventure and a yearning to explore even more of the world. When I was originally offered the contract, I accepted it once I saw this part of the itinerary. It was an easy decision to accept the job when I knew I would be visiting all these countries. We were obviously still working during the 75 days, but we were able to get off the ship at every port.
I really had no idea what to expect of China and I still don't really know whether I loved it or not to be honest. There were areas I loved, there were areas I didn't. But when I realised I would be visiting Beijing, I made it my goal to make sure I would get to see the famous Great Wall.
To this day, I still cannot quite believe I walked the Great Wall of China and I get so excited when people ask me about it. Obviously we didn't walk the whole lot, but we certainly gave it a good try! It is over 5000 miles long and would take approximately 18 months to walk! We travelled in convoy with loads of other crew members in an air conditioned coach from the port. It took 3 hours to get there!! But we had just over two hours to explore and walk up the wall. It became like a trek because of how steep it was and in the heat it was actually pretty tough. It was an amazing day and wonderfully overwhelming.
We visited Huangyaguan, which is the nearest section of wall to the Tianjin Port. I always thought the wall was one continuous structure, but that day I learnt how wrong I was! It is actually a succession of fortifications, including walls, trenches, rivers, hills etc. We didn't trek through rivers, as the section we walked was wall, but we certainly did go up over hills and parts of the wall were made of the biggest steps I have ever seen!
There is an organised passenger ship tour that takes you to visit the wall. It is very similar to the day we had as crew members. You'll be picked up by an air conditioned coach, drive for three hours and have about two hours to explore the wall. I believe you may even get lunch included!
I spent the day with wonderful friends and the four of us walked it together. We knew this was a once in a lifetime experience and obviously we wanted to make sure we had lots of good photographs. I used my GoPro and my phone for photos.
An incredible day with beautiful people.
Bucket List Tick..
