Finally, they made it. After 384 days on the New Long March trail, Ed Jocelyn and Andrew McEwen reached their destination, Wuqi County, Shaanxi Province, at around 5:30 pm Monday.

Twenty-five kilometers out of Wuqi.

Starting on October 16, 2002 from Yudu, Jiangxi Province, Jocelyn and McEwen have been retracing the trail of the original Long March of the Chinese Red Army, crossing ten provinces and autonomous regions. In doing so, they have become the first foreigners to tread this route since Otto Braun, the German military advisor who accompanied the original Long Marchers.

Reaching the end one day later than scheduled and two weeks after the date the original Long March finished, the two Englishmen looked both excited and exhausted. Surrounded by local school children, they walked through the curious welcoming crowd like heroes, with red flags draped over their shoulders, each waving a bunch of flowers.

The first thing both of them did after settling into the Wuqi Hotel was to call their parents on their satellite phone, they told Beijing Today.

“It has ben a very long journey. I have never been more tired in all my life, but today is one of our happiest days because we’ve come to the end,” said 35-year-old Jocelyn. “And even if I were offered one million dollars to rat the journey, I would say no, though I have no regrets about having done it.”

“Wuqi before was kind of dreamland to us, but finally Wuqi is a real place,” McEwen, 37, addedFor the previous 23 days, the duo walked an average of 30 kilometers per day. And on the final day, they walked a record 37 kilometers. Beijing Today caught up with them Monday morning at Xinzhaixiang, about 25 kilometers from Wuqi, in time to witness their last brunch on the road.

They arrived at Xinzhaixiang at about 10:10, slightly ahead of schedule. Walking into a roadside restaurant, the duo ordered two plates of chaomianpian (fried noodles) “with eggs but no meat.”

Although only McEwen is a vegetarian, ordethe way has become common practice for them, just to keep things simple. “It’s really lucky that we have been recently walking across the northwest part of Cna, where noodles are the staple food. That’s good to my stomach,” McEwen tolBeijing Today.

Suffering from gastritis for the past seven months, McEwen was forced to return to Beijing in late July for two weeks of medical treatment. But he managed to subsequently rejoin Jocelyn, contrary to expectations.

When asked what was the biggest benefit of completing the New Long March, both hesitated to give a definite answer. But they both agreed that learning to become “aggressive and not so courteous” was one of the changes the experience had made to their characters. “I feel more confident to be able to find positive resolutions in handling difficult sitions,” Jocelyn added, saying they still need time to ponder the deeper benefits.The two marchers have clearly paid a lot, both physiologically, economically and mentally. One direct outcome is the significant loss of weight that many of their friends have commented on. Another is that both are now deeply in debt.

Neither, however, view such results as sacrifice. It was those red army veterans who truly suffered during the original Long March, they pointed out. Their New Long March, equipped with modern communications equipment and with no enemies on their heels, was a relatively comfortable expedition.

“The veterans, not us, should best understand he real Long March spirit. And our plan is to study and document the living history along the route of the Long March,” McEwen explained. “Another important reason that we want to study the Long March is because it’s founding myth of new China, which is the most important story to understand modern China.”

For their study, the pair have met 11 Long March veterans and interviewed 107 witnesses, compiling two notebooks of diaries and over 20,000 photographs. A New Long March photo exhibition is due to Monument in Beijing on January 15, 2004, and an album of photos will be released at the same time. A book recording their experience is also planned for next year, to coincide with the 70th anniversary of the original Long March.

“Actually the ending of the New ong March trail is only the beginning of our research, as we will continue to visit more veterans back in Beijing and collect more material,” said Jocelyn. “In this sense, we are still on the road for the truth of the story.”

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