On August 12, Dykes took the very last step of his 4000-mile, 8,000,000-plus step walk along the Yangtze River at the point where it meets the East China Sea near Shanghai. It was almost a year ago - 352 days - that he began his journey. In late news, he had been forced to delay his journey by two days due to the arrival of the devastating category 3 Typhoon Lekima. By the time he completed the journey, the typhoon had passed and the weather was pleasant and cooler.

As he has been nearing the finish line, media coverage has been increasing. In the past three weeks since our last update Dykes has passed through the historical metropolis of Nanjing. While there he said he used a Chinese live-streaming social platform called Douyu through which he was broadcast to 1.7 million people over a period of 7 hours (at one point live streaming to 360,000 people at once).

He has been pushing the limit of his daily walking distances to get to the finish line, on some days walking 25-31 miles. Dykes said every day recently had been a struggle with temperatures around 105°F and high humidity making the 'feels like' temperature around 113°F!

"When I first started to plan the mission over two years ago, I knew little about China...the people and the map was meaningless and intimidating. But now, I have a nation behind me, immense stories, unreal experiences and many connections along the entire route of the Yangtze. I’ve now been here over a year and man, I love China - such a beautiful and diverse country."