18Xina 4-week walk Yangtze to Yellow 武汉开封

For detailed tracks read more here. This track is just a constructed overview file.
Done 3 weeks 2018 + 1 week 2019. In both trips I took flights between my town Barcelona and Beijing and entered China with a tourist visa (30 days standard in 2018, 35 days in 2019 by friendly decision of the visa office).
My plan for 2018 was to walk from the Yangtze river (at Wuhan city 武汉) to the Yellow River (at Kaifeng city 开封) on a continuous route, mainly on small roads.
The following list shows distances, Wikiloc route titles and Wikiloc ID numbers. You can find the day routes by searching the ID number or the title in Wikiloc.
Route title naming convention: year ("18" for 2018) + "Xina" (Catalan for China) + day count of visa + letters from route planning + place name in English and Chinese.
When planning, I identified with letters from A(=Wuhan) to Z(=Yellow River) the places where I wanted to start or end each of the 26 day walks of this trip.
28 km / 18Xina 02AA Wuhan 武汉 / ID = 38206841
36 km / 18Xina 03AB to Huangpi 黄陂 / ID = 38335840
33 km (planned, 46km real) / 18Xina 04BC to Mulan Shan 木兰山 / ID = 38004429
24 km / 18Xina 05CD to Mulan Tianchi 木兰天池 / ID = 38337530
26 km / 18Xina 06DE to Hekou zhen 河口镇 / ID = 38340005
27 km / 18Xina 07EF to Lüwang zhen 吕王镇 / ID = 38416347
31 km / 18Xina 08FG to Mt. Tiantai 天台山 / ID = 38422150
31 km / 18Xina 09GH to Qianjin xiang 千斤乡 / ID = 38443132
33 km / 18Xina 10HI to Mafan zhen 马畈镇 / ID = 38932666
31 km / 18Xina 11IJ to Zhugan zhen 竹竿镇 / ID = 38939648
31 km / 18Xina 12JK to Xixian 息县 / ID = 38963389
34 km / 18Xina 15KL to Wangwuqiao xiang 王勿侨乡 / ID = 39030942
23 km / 18Xina 19LM to Zhengyang 正阳 / ID = 39149845
25 km / 18Xina 20MN to Liangzhu 梁祝 Maxiang 马乡 zhen 镇 / ID = 39159206
30 km / 18Xina 21NO to Runan xian 汝南县 / ID = 39160752
35 km / 19Xina 03AB to Shangcai 上蔡 / ID = 35043404
37 km / 19Xina 04BC to Xiping 西平 / ID = 35043420
31 km / 19Xina 05CD to Luohe 漯河 / ID = 35120819
38 km / 19Xina 06DF to Linying 临颍 / ID = 35120827
36 km / 19Xina 07FG to Xuchang 许昌 / ID = 35120866
32 km / 18Xina 23TU to Changge shi 长葛市 / ID = 39170113
23 km / 18Xina 24UV to Weichuan zhen 洧川镇 / ID = 39177328
31 km / 18Xina 25VW to Weishi xian 尉氏县 / ID = 39184339
30 km / 18Xina 26WX to Zhuxian zhen 朱仙镇 / ID = 39194996
29 km / 18Xina 27XY to Kaifeng shi 开封市 / ID = 39208804
25 km / 18Xina 28YZ to Yellow River 黄河 / ID = 39209445
790 km in total
Others:
20km? / 18Xina 17 break Mt.Chaya 嵖岈山 read description / ID = 39111786
Tourist sites: A, C, D, G, O, T(=2019G), Y, (Z).
I had booked my flights for staying 29 days in China, so I had one "buffer day" so I would not run into visa problems in case my return flight would be heavily delayed. Of these 29 days, the first and last day were for internal flights between Beijing and Zhengzhou. So 27 days were available for doing the 26 walks with just 1 day of rest.
On day 04, between "B" and "C" I lost my way so much that I made about 46km instead of the planned 33km. From this I got blisters on my feet. On day 05, I spend the morning walking from "C" to "D" and in the afternoon, without luggage, I walked through the mountain park at "D". I should have split that into 2 days in order to restore my feet. However, I did not want to spend my only day of rest so early.
After day 12, with my feet still not completely recovered, I rested two days (13&14), so I had one day missing in my planning to arrive at the Yellow river in time for the return fight. I hoped to compensate that later on by doing 3 planned days in 2 real days.
However, after walking day 15, I decided my feet needed more rest and abandoned the plan to walk the complete distance from the Yangtze to the Yellow river during this trip. I took 3 days "off": Day 16 bus to Mount Chaya, day 17 visit Mt. Chaya (without luggage), day 18 bus back to main walking route.
On day 19, 20 & 21, I continued my walk until "O". On day 22, I took a bus to "T" and from there continued my walk to "Z".
So I had skipped the part from "2018 O" to "2018 T" by bus. The following year, I walked this part (renamed "2019 A" to "2019 G") in the first week of another 4-week China walk, also published here in WIkiloc: "19Xina 4-week walk Henan Mt. Song 汝南焦作", Wikiloc ID = 39858057

I prepare my China trips by putting together a planning sheet for each day, so I can find the route without depending on my mobile phone, and especially without depending on online maps or GPS signals. Actually, I did not buy a SIM card during my stay in China. In 2018, I tried to buy one in Wuhan, but at Wuhan's central China Telecom office they tried one in my phone and it did not work (before I had been in a branch office where they told me I would need a Chinese ID card to buy a SIM card). In 2019, in the baggage retrieval hall of Beijing Airport, I saw advertisement for SIM cards for foreigners, but did not want to wait until that sales desk opened (For travelling with a Chinese phone to other countries, there were SIM card vending machines).
In this Wikiloc route, you will find an overview planning sheet attached as an image. This was also useful when police knocked at my hotel room one day and asked what I was doing: I showed them that planning sheet and they took a photo of it.
In the day walk routes, you will find the daily planning sheet. However, now you have the Wikiloc tracks which should make the planning sheets redundant if you just want to repeat my walks.
If you want to plan your own version of a China road walk, I hope the material I publish here will give you inspiration!