To be on another journey feels so great.

As Rumi says:

Rise up nimbly

and go on your strange journey

to the ocean of meanings.

The stream knows

it can’t stay on the mountain.

Leave and don’t look away

from the sun as you go,

in whose light

you’re sometimes crescent,

sometimes full.

Tomorrow, Dan and I head 7 degrees north of the Equator to Ride for the Rainforest.

Ride for the Rainforest is a bike ride across Sri Lanka to raise money for Rainforest Rescue, our favourite not-for-profit organisation, who are committed to Protecting Rainforests Forever.

It will be awesome, and we can’t wait!

This is the first big bike ride we’ve done since RideHimalaya… We’re leading a group of 9 Australian cyclists 300 kilometres, from the ancient city of Kandy, to the highest point on the island, Nuwara Eliya, into the Sinharaja rainforest, and down to the coast at Galle.

So over the next couple of weeks, think of us, sitting in those saddles for eight hours a day, puffing up those steep mountain tracks, and free-wheeling back down again with the wind on our faces. We love it!

If you’d like to join us, subscribe to our blog, or check out the Rainforest Rescue website at www.rainforestrescue.org.au

Posted by Krista

Our trip is to raise funds for Rainforest Rescue, an environmental organisation working to protect rainforests of the world. Here is an update on their progress…

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Good news! Since January of this year Rainforest Rescue has planted 10,000 trees on previously cleared land inside the Daintree National Park in far-north Queensland.

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Also, on 13 May 2009, Rainforest Rescue purchased Lot 29 Cape Tribulation Road in the Daintree! This is the 11th property in Rainforest Rescue’s Daintree Buy Back and Protect Forever Project – identifying and purchasing precious rainforest at risk of development and establishing Nature Refuge status, which protects it forever under covenants ratified by the Queensland Parliament in Australia.

Owning this 11th property not only means that the unique rainforest flora here, including the impressive fan palms are safe, but rare and endangered species like the Bennett’s tree kangaroo and cassowaries now have a vital corridor through the rural residential subdivision from the Daintree National Park on its northern side to two declared Nature Reserves in the south. This is particularly important in this area, as residential development fragments essential cassowary habitat through clearing and the introduction of weeds and dogs.

Unlike the properties to the south of the adjoining road, which are in wet lowland areas, Lot 29 runs up the side of the foothills of the Daintree National Park, offering a significantly different ecosystem especially worthy of conservation.

The vegetation type here is described as notophyll to mesophyll vine forest with significant numbers of fan palms on the slopes with the main emergent being the swamp mahogany — host to the rare redeye butterfly and bottlebrush orchids. The biodiversity values of this ecosystem type are described as being ‘very species rich’.

As a dedicated Nature Refuge, no development is possible at all now on this property; no dogs, no traffic, no clearing, nothing. Just nature doing what it does best (under the watchful eye of biologist and Conservation Manager David Cook). You can visit this and other properties we have secured on a self guided tour, Rainforest Rescue can give you directions any time.

Your continued support is vital in keeping up the momentum on this project. Please help secure even more of the Daintree by making a donation to Rainforest Rescue.

Click here to donate, thank you! xxx

As you probably already know, Dan and I are riding from London to Lhasa to raise money for Rainforest Rescue, a not for profit organisation based in Australia, who is committed to protecting rainforests for current and future generations.

To watch the latest video showing footage of some of the endangered rainforests and species that Rainforest Rescue are working to protect, click here