Johnny Isaak | Adventure Cyclist
A compendium of adventure cycling chronicles, travel lore, tips, techniques, and tactics for the adventure cycling perplexed.
Waves were washing ashore on my left. Countless stars speckled an inky black sky. The Southern Crux and Milky Way showed brightly. The constellations seemed close enough to touch or maybe scoop a handful from the air. To the north was Ninety-Mile beach cloaked in featureless black. Beyond that was Cape Reinga, my destination for the day and this journey lay on the other side. Signpost to adventure up ahead.
Realizing your dreams and living free is about putting yourself out there. It’s about venturing forth into the wind. Hummingbirds are small, but the can cover vast stretches of open water during their annual migration.
Should I leap and descend into the underworld? Standing on the windswept bluff overlooking the meeting place between the Tasman Sea and the Pacific Ocean, it’s not difficult to see why the Maori consider Cape Reinga such a special place.
Peering from atop of the ruined stone ramparts that once marked the edge of known civilization for the Han Chinese through the morning haze out across the vast and intimidating mountains to the north, one could not help but imagine life in the Chinese dynasties and the harrowing experiences imperial soldiers must have faced defending the Middle Kingdom against the savage marauding warrior trips of the Xiongnu sweeping down from the hinterlands of the Eurasian Steppe to visit havoc and destruction on the cultivated and ordered Han society.
Free of the thick, jaundiced air, congested streets, oppressive heat, and clogged tourist attractions of Beijing, rugged highlands to the north of China’s capital lend themselves to an unfettered exploration of the Great Wall of China and its ancient ruined ramparts ensconced atop of forbidding mountain ridges blocking hostile encroachment from the north.
Prizing authenticity over the highly commercialized “Disneyland” experience the more popular and overcrowded tourist destination Badaling has to offer, one can hire a car and head for the lesser traveled sections of the Great Wall that stand above the village of Mutianyu located about 70 some odd kilometers north of Beijing.
Escape the thickening jaundiced air, congested streets, oppressive heat, and clogged tourist attractions of Beijing. Search the ruined ramparts atop of forbidding mountains blocking the Eurasian Steppe to the north. Clamber among the scattered stones of the “wild walls” of the Changcheng or the Long Wall as the Chinese know it. [Read more…] about Exploring China’s “Wild Wall”
