My Dream to Dare start
We all have dreams that gave us moments of happiness. Once in a while, one comes along and you know it has to, it must be done.
The challenge then is to turn that dream into a dare – the courage to do something and act on it. Courage is not the absence of fear; courage is the triumph over fear.
This is my story of such a dream – to walk the Great Wall of China.
I shall share with you how this dream came about, how the dream germinates into a vision, and how it then became a life mission.
In October 2008, suddenly out of nowhere, a strange dream came to me – a “force”, an “image”, a “person” (let’s call this “fip”), appeared and said – “go walk”. And then “fip” added: “whilst you are at it, count your steps”.
It was a few days before it dawn on me that the message was: C.O.U.N.T – Compassion, Optimism, Unity, Nature and Tomorrow.
Slowly the vision gels into this:
"Every fortunate person to demonstrate the Compassion of one's heart and donate to the destitute and needy, so that together we can share and partake in the Optimism and hope for the Unity of all peoples to preserve the wonders and beauty of Nature for our children of Tomorrow."
I had to learn and/or promote the virtue of that vision. The “go walk“ moment, awaken my innate passion to wander, and whilst trolling through the net, I decided that I shall take on one of the 7 wonders of the world – The Great Wall of China (一万里长城 ).
This then, became my mission – to walk the 10,000 “li” Ming Great Wall of China – which was estimated to be about 5,500 km.
To eat this huge dragon, I had to cut it down to bite sizes, especially for an old man of 55. My estimated step stride is about 55cm, so I thought if I were to take 1 million steps (550 km) per year, I might be able to complete traversing the Great Wall in 10.
Thus, the mission is to take:-
“1,000,000 steps per year, along the Ming (明朝) Great Wall of China, starting at Di Yidun (第一墩), Jiayuguan to Laolongtou (老龙头), Shanhaiguan.”
The theme of my walk developed into: C.O.U.N.T 1,000,000 steps. And with the help of my niece and nephew, we designed a simple logo for motivation and focus:
A simple circle of life (as well as mother Nature), with 10 crenellations of increasing height (difficulty), each symbolises 1x1,000,000 steps goal per year. The smiling face of the sun on the front and the crescent moon on the back of the T-shirt, with the expectation of walking day and night. Each crenellation is filled for each trek completed, the above shows 7 treks of walking. Each trip I printed 2xT-shirts with 2 colours of the rainbow.
So, now the challenge is the execution of the missions.
I am blessed and fortunate to chance upon the fantastic website:
Great Wall Forum: http://www.greatwallforum.com
and with the help of Bryan (the administrator), was put in touch with one of their key senior members, Andreas C Lehman (AL), who has spent close to a decade trekking over 6,000 km of the Great Wall of China.
AL graciously agreed to take up my cause, and took great effort and time to prepare the 8xGPS tracks from Jiayuguan to Sanguankou totalling about 520 KM of the existing wall. Not only that, he went out of his way to get me a Garmin eTrex Vista HCx GPS tracking device, loaded the tracks, and DHLed the parcel with printed maps and 30xlitium batteries to me just in time for my walk.
I had another godsend when Kin, another Great Wall enthusiast decided to join me for 14 days. By then AL had arranged for his friend, Chen Huai (CH) in Lanzhou to be our driver/guide for the journey.
I flew to Senzhen from Kuala Lumpur, then to Lanzhou where we got together with CH. Kin and I took the overnight train to Jiayuguan (CH to join us a day later with his Jeep) and we started the walk from Di Yidun on the 7th of September 2009 – the start of my dreamed C.O.U,N.T 1,000,000 steps.