Element of blind date in 1,000 km elephant ride

Caroline Casey is about to embark on a 1,000 km trip across the south of India on the back of an elephant

Caroline Casey is about to embark on a 1,000 km trip across the south of India on the back of an elephant. But her biggest concern is how she's going to get on with her elephant, Bhadra.

"We'll be spending three months together. It's a bit like a blind date," she said yesterday as she prepared to leave Dublin Airport.

Caroline, whose visual impairment means she is legally blind, will travel from 5 a.m. to 12 p.m. every day, then camp in tents with no shower, or toilet facilities. "Showering is not really going to happen, I'll shower when the elephant bathes. I'm not even allowed to use toilet paper [for environmental reasons]."

Bidding farewell to her family, friends and supporters at Dublin Airport yesterday, she said she was "really excited".

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"It's hard to believe this day has finally arrived. This has been my dream for over a year now and to be an aeroplane journey away from it is incredible."

After a 1 1/2-hour sleep last night, she "woke up this morning and thought: `we did it'. I'm really proud of everybody involved. I'm completely exhausted, this is the most challenging, draining thing I've ever done, but I've never got such a buzz from anything in my life."

She admitted, though, to being "nervous about being on my own" as no one is accompanying her to India. She will have two mahouts (elephant handlers) and two Indian guides with her, who she'll meet just two days before they set out. Caroline, a management consultant with Accenture (formerly Andersen Consulting), founded the Aisling Project Indian Challenge six months ago to raise £250,000 for SightSavers International, the National Council for the Blind and the Protection of the Asian Elephant. Some £130,000 has been raised so far, and fundraising events will continue while she is away to raise the remaining £120,000.

The trip is also "a way to capture public imagination to promote a positive image of disability, to stop telling people what they can't do. If I have a dream, I can achieve it, even if I have to do it back to front."

Caroline and Bhadra will have a month in Delhi before the trek to develop a bond, which is crucial to success. She will learn to bathe, feed and ride the elephant to encourage trust and an understanding of her visual disability. She has opted to ride bareback, declining the generally-used howdah, because bareback is the tradition in the region.

Along the way Caroline and Bhadra will visit SightSavers Projects, hospitals and elephant care projects. A documentary of the odyssey is being made, for sale later, and a video featuring endorsements from patrons such as Andrea Corr and Christy Moore, will arrive in Irish schools later this month. Regular diary extracts will be posted on the Aisling Project website, Weblink: www.theaislingproject.org.

Donations can be made to Bank of Ireland, 34 College Green, Dublin 2.