My name is Geoff Hickman and I live and work in Nottingham.

In May 2012 I will be solo-cycle-camping from Lands End to my home in Nottingham to (hopefully) raise £1000 for Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust.

This is the first time I have done anything like this and until I started training for the event the furthest I had cycled was from the 4 miles from my home to my office.

This blog is intended as a record of my trip starting from now as I begin my training - and finishing when the last of the donations is collected somtime in Autumn 2012.

If you would like to help out with a donation please visit https://mydonate.bt.com/fundraisers/400milesofmindfulness

Why this trip?
I was invited to participate in an organised mass-ride for charity in 2011. When I looked into I discovered that £1000 of money each rider raised went on support costs – food, accommodation, mechanic & medical assistance etc. I thought to myself “If I upgrade some of my camping and cycling gear I could do this myself and ALL the money raised would go to my charity”. Every penny of the money I raise will go direct to Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust. I am hoping for some sponsorship from camping and cycling stores as well as some help from campsites en-route; all other costs I will cover myself.

Why Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust?
This autumn Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust are launching a new appeal to raise funds to purchase and maintain a herd of Lincoln Red cattle – for grazing within the Trent Vale and for breeding. My target of £1000 will enable the trust to purchase the first cow.

"So you're doing all this just to buy a cow?!"
Well, not quite...

Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust are leading on the grazing aspects of the Trent Vale Landscape Partnership project, an ambitious living landscape area aimed at buffering, reconnecting and interpreting fragmented habitats and heritage features along the river Trent.  As part of this they are working with farmers and other bodies such as British Waterways and the Environment Agency to identify areas which have not been grazed for many years and bringing their experience with a “Flying Flock”, or herd in this instance, to bring back the traditional management in these areas.

Lincoln Reds are a traditional breed from the Trent Vale, so are a heritage feature which delivers habitat management.  They are perfect for use on the species rich meadows in this area, creating habitat opportunities for plants and insects as well as nesting and feeding sites for birds, which have all been struggling in this area over recent years

"Yeah but that's still just messing about with fields an' that right?"

OK, let me call upon the great american entomologist E.O Wilson, the chap who first coined the word biodiversity -  he can explain far better than I why habitat management is important:

"...the worst thing that will probably happen - in fact is already well underway - is not energy depletion, economic collapse, conventional war, or even the expansion of totalitarian governments. As terrible as these catastrophes would be for us, they can be repaired within a few generations. The one process now ongoing that will take millions of years to correct is the loss of genetic and species diversity by the destruction of natural habitats. This is the folly our descendants are least likely to forgive us."

GH