29th April. We had a brief walk through the friendly village, then
climbed up and up through the hillside for a couple of hours.
There were wonderful blossom trees of white, pinks and purples everywhere, I noticed
tiny blue and yellow irises about an inch in height, growing along the
path-side, (like we have buttercups and daisies in our country), we saw
unusually- coloured butterflies, lizards and a huge bullet-shaped orange
and black wasp that was almost two inches long, that we walked past very
carefully!
We saw the Great Wall high on the ridge ahead of us and slowly
wind our way up to it. Once again we were rewarded by stunning views of
the Great Wall as it disappeared from view in both directions.
This part of the wall has been restored and was very busy with lots of other
tourists, some of whom had been transported upwards by the cable-car.
We took the opportunity of a fast descent down from the top; I got the
rickety open cable-car down and my husband took the fun-seeking toboggan
run down, which was a lot slower than he thought it was going to be. We
stayed in the hotel at Mutianyu again for a second birthday evening for
another of our trekking group.
