大象传媒

I've reached the end of my on the Great Wall of China and I couldn't recommend a trip out here enough.

The scenery is spectacular and the wall itself takes your breath away - I was constantly looking at it and thinking how on earth did they construct this?

We've had a hard few days, but I've learnt a lot about the and I managed to break a record, which you're welcome to try and beat if you are ever in .

In fact, if you are coming to Beijing for the Games and you want a day out at the wall in an area that's not too touristy, Simatai, two-and-a-half hours out of the capital, is well worth a visit.

It provided us with the toughest day yet in terms of distance covered and the surface we were walking on.

We trekked through sections that have been untouched for over 500 years. Much of the wall we walked on had been restored but this was not paved smoothly, which made progress quite slow, although it was more fulfilling.

You've all seen pictures of the wall, but it's difficult to give an accurate impression of the undulations.

There are lots of steep up and downhill sections with precipitous drops, which people who suffer from need a helping hand with.

A 12-tower challenge was set for the afternoon, and as there are five Olympians here it was taken up with relish.

The idea is to get up a section of the wall, which rises about 600m, as quickly as possible.

It's a bit of fun and it was nice to be able to go as hard as I could and I managed to break into a slight jog at one stage.

Two-thirds of the way up I realised that I hadn't opened my lungs that much in about 12 years and I was really sucking in the air.

But the endurance kicked in and although I don't want to make a big thing out of it, I was first to the top in a new record time of 21 minutes, 50 seconds!

The guides were impressed as the quickest they had done was around 26 minutes.

Guin Batten was second up about two and-a-half minutes behind, followed by Allison Curbishley and Karen Pickering. Poor old Steve Smith was the slowest of the Olympians!

Then we had a suspension bridge to cross and a zip-wire descent 150 foot above a ravine with a lake at the bottom.

The zip-wire ride may not have met with the stringent health and safety checks of Britain, but we got to the bottom for a beer and it was a great end to the day.

The final day was a little less strenuous but it gave me time to reflect on all the things our Chinese guides Alan and Jimmy have told us about the wall and what it represents.

China used to be split up a little bit like Europe with France, Germany and Spain all ruling a bit and the wall played a great part in helping that before the country morphed into one.

It is an important physical structure, but it is not made up of one wall, rather lots of smaller ones that have been joined together, although that doesn't lessen its impact.

There's a couple of days left of our trip and, although we were given the option of going to another section of the wall, we voted to head back to Beijing and see some of the Olympic site.

I'm still not sure whether we will get access to any of the venues, but I'll let you know on Tuesday how the city is gearing up for August.

Steve Cram was talking to 大象传媒 Sport's Peter Scrivener