No one has ever made a solo journey across the Taklamakan Desert. Damian Fletcher intends to become the first. In addition he also intends to make the journey , without resupplies, carrying all of his food and equipment with him from the start. After a grueling 2200km solo trek, he will travel the entire length of the Great Wall of China from West to East. Another 5640km of unsupported hardship.

This journey is one of the last great expeditionary firsts left in the world.

Northern China is indeed a harsh place of terrible winters, ferocious summers, and parched deserts, but it is far from lifeless, with colourful places, surprising creatures, amazing people and strange landscapes. The further we travel the more extreme it will become, so how do people cope with the hardships and challenges which lay beyond the Wall?

The Wall's journey through Northern China bisects a landscape that becomes increasingly parched, hot, dry and desolate. But the Wall still has one final surprise, an even more formidable barrier. A vast no man's land that stretches westward to the borders of central Asia. This is China's largest desert, the Taklamakan. Its name has been translated as "you go in and you never come out!".

It is the hottest place in China with air temperatures recorded as high as 50 degrees Celsius, and ground temperatures up to 80 degrees. This is a place of intense heat and abrasive windblown sand that is totally hostile to life, with strong winds whipping in from the west that blow the sand into the world's tallest sand dunes. Over millennia, mega dunes have built up, soaring to over 500 meters tall.

No wonder travellers call this place "Fury of God and sea of death".

But the most severe problem is lack of water. China's deserts are the farthest place on earth from any ocean. This lack of water is what created the Taklamakan, an area the size of Germany, covered in sand dunes. This is the world's largest shifting sand desert.

Most living creatures would die here.

Yet there is a route through the desert for those brave enough to risk their lives for it.

Join us, as we attempt to cross some of the harshest terrain on planet earth!