Advertisement

Let's not go through that again

Reading Time:3 minutes
Why you can trust SCMP
0

The Darwin Awards are bestowed annually upon humans who are so mind-bogglingly dim that they earn themselves deselection from the gene pool for dying in the most moronic of circumstances.

My expedition partner, Leon McCarron, and I might well have qualified for it following our - on hindsight, silly - decision to walk through the 18-kilometre Zhongnanshan Tunnel, the world's second-longest road tunnel which cuts through the middle of the Qinling Mountains in the southern part of China's Shaanxi province.

Feeling rather like when the Fellowship of the Ring decided to brave the mines of Moria, we decided to try our luck at walking through it, because we were behind schedule and faced even further delays if we walked up and down all the passes and descents along the small roads that wound through the mountain range.

We had, after all, already crossed the Gobi Desert and walked down the Yellow River valley, covering more than half of our 5,000-kilometre Walking Home From Mongolia expedition so far. At this point, we'd take any short cuts we could get.

We are heading for the Yangtze, about three more weeks' walk away. In the past week, we walked south out of Xian's city walls,and then through the city's giant grid system of buildings and roadworks before finally reaching the countryside.

At the edge of Xian, we reached a steep hillside, beyond which a patchwork of fields spread as far as the eye could see - which on that particular day was probably only about one kilometre, as the air was filled with a damp, grey smog. Three hours later, the flat monotony ended, and towering before us were the giant Qinling Mountains - huge limestone cliffs jumping out from the ground like a battalion of soldiers determined to stop anyone passing.

In fact, through history, these mountains have proved a brilliant defensive barrier against invading marauders, as there are only a handful of crossing points through the cliffs. They also act as a rain barrier that contributes to the aridity of the north, and in their deciduous forests is an incredible ecological diversity, which includes even wild pandas and leopards. It is probably partly because of the different climates on the two sides of them that the mountains have been considered a symbolic barrier between the elusive concept of 'northern' and 'southern' China.

Advertisement