The first Great Wall of China trek
Witness History
BBC
4.5 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 26 March 2026
⏱️ 10 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
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Summary
In May1984, three friends starting trekking along the Great Wall of China. It took 508 days for them to complete and they became the first people to do it.
They finally reached their destination at the Jiayu Pass on 24 September 1985, having documented the condition of the wall every step of the way.
The men became national heroes, as the press followed their progress. Dong Yaohui spoke to Rebecca Kesby in 2017 about the inspiration for their journey.
Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by and curious about the past. We take you to the events that have shaped our world through the eyes of the people who were there.
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(Photo: Dong Yaohui, Wu Deyu and Zhang Yuanhua. Credit: Dong Yaohui)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts. |
| 0:06.2 | Hello and welcome to the Witness History podcast from the BBC World Service. |
| 0:15.1 | Witness history takes you to a moment in history to hear the amazing memories of people who are there, |
| 0:20.7 | as well as powerful |
| 0:21.6 | archive recordings. It's just nine minutes long and comes out every weekday, so make sure you |
| 0:27.7 | subscribe wherever you get your BBC podcasts and turn your push notifications on so you never |
| 0:33.5 | miss a thing. Rebecca Kesby is taking you to the Great Wall of China, which snakes |
| 0:39.1 | across the northern mountainous states for more than 8,000 kilometers. In 2017, Rebecca heard from |
| 0:45.8 | Yao Huo Dong about the first known mission to walk along the entire ancient landmark. |
| 0:57.0 | Sometimes when I stand on the war, I feel like I'm having a conversation with people from ancient times. |
| 1:03.8 | When I put my hand on the stones, I think about how hundreds of years ago this stone was carved out of the mountains |
| 1:10.3 | and placed on the wall by |
| 1:11.9 | someone. And I tried to imagine them and what sort of lives they had. |
| 1:17.6 | Yao Hui Dong has spent his life studying the war. And on September the 24th, 1985, he and two |
| 1:24.8 | friends became the first people ever recorded to walk the entire length of it, |
| 1:29.5 | well over 8,000 kilometers. |
| 1:32.3 | It was an adventure that took them 16 months, but the inspiration for it had developed over years. |
| 1:40.5 | In the early 80s, I was an electrician, installing high voltage power lines. |
| 1:45.6 | But in my spare time, I was also really into literature, and I would write my own stories and poems. |
| 1:52.0 | I could see the Great Wall from my house. |
| 1:55.0 | I found it really inspiring, and I'd always think, how did I actually build it? |
| 2:00.1 | At the time, there were hardly any books written about it. |
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