I remember the farewell dinner we had after completing the Run of the Great wall of China. A group of individuals plucked from every walk of life, but now a cohesive team was there, we had been together for 5 months and we had been through a journey of a lifetime. Each person was given a chance to stand up and relate what the journey had meant to them. As each person stood up, silence fell on the room, we knew that this was going to be a massive revelation in each person’s life to date. There were such personal recollections of the journey, what it had meant to that individual left us all fighting back the tears. Every story was life changing and heart wrenching. William Lindsay (who had travelled most of the wall some 23 years prior) was responsible in putting the Chinese logistics side of the run together for us, stood up and shared his feelings on his journey along the wall and how it had changed his life, ending with a statement as he looked over to me and smiled.

During the earlier part of our run we have seen an ever growing stream of tomatoes in the villages and towns we passed. Out in the dessert we would come across a small farming hamlet and there would be a barrow being pushed by an old

Running through the Northwest of China two things are really prominent with regard to food, the first is noodles and the second is rice, the 2 main sources of starch or “Carbs”. From the mega city to the smallest little farming hamlet in the mountains or

For hundreds of years The Great Wall has stretched sprawled out across the Northwest of China, across deserts, mountains, forests and some of the harshest terrain known to man. Like a giant dragon it has lain as a protector and deterrent to the ferocious foes of

The foundation was set up prior to the run of the Great Wall of China. Since my return from the run we have raised some 600 000 00 rands which have all gone to our sole beneficiary, operation Smile South Africa. While running the great wall I

The visibility is now down to a few meters all I can hear is the clinking of ski poles as they strike the rocks. A blanket of snow has now totally covered the surface of the wall. Every now and then the wall peeps through the

With the 3000km mark drawing near and 3 months on the wall, it is really difficult to conceive what I have already been through. The desert seemed never ending as we traveled up the Hexi corridor along the silk route from Jauyigian. I felt like a

It’s been about 70 days of great weather. Plodding along the wall, the season has been slowly changing, passing the odd tree and seeing the light yellow leaves sea - sawing to the ground, the grass brown and dry, fields of corn plants with their long

We have pushed up north of Beijing following the wall to Gilbarco and into the mountain at Samutai and on. We now take a turn to the Southeast and deeper into the cold rugged unforgiving mountains which reach up to 2500 meters. The wall just continues

With the mountain's harshness has come the beginnings of the Great rock Wall. It has been over 70 days on this journey and every few weeks I see a part of the wall which I feel is the most amazing sight that I have ever seen.