Charity Fundraising Manager, Heather Manson, and a group of Scottish supporters all decided to take action for the charity and trek along the Great Wall of China in order to raise essential funds for research.
She’s danced with the locals, slept five-in-a-bed, eaten rice and noodles for breakfast and tomorrow she’ll be sliding down a zip slide over a lake.
Therefore, on day six, we managed to drag her away from the karaoke machine to update us on her ‘trip of a lifetime’.
This is her story...
I’m in the karaoke bar because we’re relaxing after a very challenging and emotional day.
It truly is a ‘trip of a lifetime’ because we all came to this amazing country to challenging ourselves for our own very personal reasons but we’re doing it together and we’ve all really bonded as a group.
Today, after walking up – what felt like – a mountain, we all took time out to look out across the incredible views and think about why we’re all here. There are some very emotional stories on the trip and so we all ended up cuddling and supporting each other. However, we also all felt a true sense of achievement.
There are three guys and 37 women on this trip and we’ve all worked as a team, which included helping the four people who suffer with vertigo across the narrow parts of the wall and we’ve even slept five to a bed when we stayed overnight in one of the villages! On this trip you really feel as though you’ve merge deep into the country’s culture.
Usually we set off around 7.30am, after having breakfast, which can vary from pancakes or toast to noodles and rice. However, we all agree that the food has been fantastic, very different, but delicious - you just have to adapt.
The scenery is very lush and green and the ground is very dry – it actually reminds me a bit of Scotland!
On this trip we’re very lucky not to always be in the touristy area and we often walk through forests and woodlands, as well as along the wall, which gives us a nice variety of scenery.
The people we have met in the villages have been so friendly and we have even had dinner with a mountain family, who were so welcoming.
The guides are also extremely friendly and really well educated. Every evening they give a cultural lecture. Last night it was about how China controls the population and the night before about their language.
It’s such a mixed and varied group with some fantastic stories. Apparently only 500 people get the chance to do this tour so we feel very privileged to be able to have had this experience, especially as we feel that we have experienced the true China away from the touristy part.
We have another massive day tomorrow where we will be walking eight hours but we’re also going to be doing a zip slide across the lake and walking a rope bridge –we’re all very excited about that!
But it’s not all about walking... in the evenings we’ve held concerts, sang around the campfire and even danced with some of the locals but we’ve obviously also had a few early nights and are often in bed by 9.30pm.
We’ll all be getting our souvenirs books tomorrow along with our China trek t-shirts so we’ll sign each others and write messages.
There are around 13 Scots in the group and what a laugh we’ve had.
It really is an experience of a lifetime – I would definitely recommend it to anyone.
