I am up north of Timau again (near the northern slopes of Mt Kenya) staying at Kisima Farm. Everyone here has always been very welcoming to me here, one of my Trustees, Martin Dyer, has lived and worked here all his life and his family have been a great support to the Trust. I’m staying with Sara and Charlie Dyer who have become good friends and have put me up more times than I can count. They have what I feel is the most idillic lifestyle though they work very hard for it. Their support for the communities in the area and their efforts to plant trees and assist the Trust give them more work than the running of the farm but it also gives them a lot of satisfaction. Kisima grows wheat and barley, has a horticultural operation (flowers and veggies) and also a growing forestry section to help take the pressure off timber resources. Kisima is shown in the ariel photo below in the foreground with Marania near the mountain and the mountain in the background.

Anyway I am here because I had a meeting with Kisima, Marania, a KWS representative and a Trustee to decide on who wins the contract for the elephant corridor fencing phase. Its so exciting for this to now be a reality. The corridor passes through Marania and Kisima Farms following a parallel route to the 10 to 4 mountain bike challenge to the south. This corridor is really a historic conservation effort for Kenya. It makes me very proud to have been able to be such a big part of it. The next step is to get the job for the underpasses tendered out. We have already surveyed the two sites. On completion the elephants will be using the corridor and avoiding two public roads by walking underneath them. Virgin Atlantic are sponsoring the cost of the underpasses. In the photo below Charlie Dyer (on the left) is seen on top of one side of the Nanyuki - Meru highway where the underpass will be built.

Always a sucker for the cute and cuddly I can’t resist finishing this post with the photos below. Those of you who read about Widget, a great companion to me for over 5 happy years will be pleased to hear that my heartbreak is healing with the help of Chalkie and my new addition which very close friends bought for me a couple of weeks ago. His name is Gizmo WingNut Weeks and he is already a big part of my life. The pictures below were taken last night by Sara Dyer whose Great Dane was fascinated by tiny Gizmo. Pippi was so gentle and playful it was like neither of them could see that there was such a massive size difference. Ahhh.

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