Last week, my cameraman Leon McCarron and I entered the legendary karst landscapes of the Li River, near Guilin. We have now walked about 4,000 kilometres, and have fewer than 1,000 to go. It's the beginning of the end. Over these six months of walking, surviving and slogging, a big part of each day has been finding food. These are the top three meals we've had.
Mongolian noodles in a magical ger
A week after departing Mongolia, we were walking through the frozen hills of the Gobi. There had been a terrible wind all day. With the sun setting and no settlements in sight, we were dreading another night in our icy tents.
Suddenly, I spotted a dog scampering across the barren landscape. A dog meant humans, and then Leon exclaimed: 'A ger!' It was like a magical Christmas scene - a beautiful round white tent against a hillside, with a small smoke trail gently floating out of its chimney. We hurried over to meet an old man who was just returning home with his goats. He invited us inside, into the glorious warmth of a stove-heated room. The relief to our shaking bodies was incredible, and we burst out smiling as the kind goat herder and his wife offered us a patch of warm floor to sleep on.
While the man used a car battery to power a single light bulb, his wife cooked us Mongolian winter fare - thick noodles (a bit like tagliatelle) with soup and goat meat. It was fatty, tasty and hot - a perfect end to a long day in the Gobi.
Family feast on Lunar New Year's Eve
On January 22 - Lunar New Year's Eve - we were in the third month of our expedition and walking along a road above the frozen Yellow River. Darkness arrived, I was cold, and my bruised feet were aching badly, and we were still two hours from Hequ. When we arrived, it looked like all the adults were inside enjoying a big meal, while the children were outside setting off fireworks.