A stay at Borana is a very special holiday. Ride over the 35,000 acre ranch near to Mount Kenya, see a wide diversity of wildlife and stay in a truly luxurious lodge.

Borana would not be the place it is today without horses. When the Dyer family first came here horses were the only means of transport. Now you can enjoy riding over this wonderful place. On morning, afternoon and all day rides you can explore the length and breadth of the ranch and experience the intense excitement of viewing game from horseback.

There are horses to suit all preferences and abilities. From Borana Lodge, competent riders can ride out on a Thoroughbred or Throughbred-cross, many of them former polo ponies of the Dyers. At the foot of the escarpment is the Ngare Ndare River. Here Rose Dyer keeps a stable of Somali/ Ethiopian horses. This small strong horse, c.14/15hh, is incredibly sure footed and ideal for riding in the bush. Since they live out, the game is very used to their presence and you will get amazingly close to giraffe and other game.

A third riding possibility, for experienced riders, is at Kisima riding out on polo ponies. Here the terrain is very different to that at Borana as you ride through thick forests of cedar and rosewood before the landscape opens out to the heather covered foothills of Mount Kenya.

If you wish to take a break from riding, then you might opt for a game drive or guided bush walk and night game drives will introduce you to nocturnal birds and animals. Or simply relax by the pool and pamper yourself with a massage or beauty treatment.

Your base is Borana Lodge with its panoramic views. Each of the beautiful guest rooms is quite secluded from its neighbour and luxuriously furnished with an open-fire lit for you in the evening. In the sitting area in the main lodge sofas surround a huge fireplace with picture windows looking onto the valley below. Meals are served at a huge rosewood table in the dining room. All food is freshly prepared in the kitchen with vegetables and produce from the farm, freshly squeezed juice from the orchard and wines from around the world. Roses and lilies grown at Kisima decorate and perfume the rooms.

If you can bear to leave your wonderful room, you might choose to have an exciting night under canvas at a fly camp. Borana is an ideal holiday for mixed groups of riders
and non-riders.

Borana is involved in a number of conservation and community projects, guests pay a conservation fee per night and this money is put towards the many projects including:

HIDE & SHEEP LTD
In 1966 Will Powys, grandfather of Michael Dyer, began an ambitious project to employ the local handicapped people of the area.
He opened Hide and Sheep Ltd, which from its humble beginnings in a small wooden thatched building now employs a talented group of blind and physically disabled people from the local community, who together create an impressive variety of top quality sheep and calfskin products.

In an area where polio and other debilitating diseases are far too common, Hide and Sheep Ltd has given those affected an ideal means to express their creativity and desire for independence while also giving them a livelihood.

The tanning, using a traditional vegetable process, is performed by the blind members of the group, whilst the stitching and product design is expertly carried out by those with other physical disabilities.

The work of Hide and Sheep Ltd is complimented by an enthusiastic self-help group of Maasai women who stitch small glass beads onto several of the products, giving them their unique character and style.

Under the critical eye of their charismatic chairlady, Resiki, the women's handiwork is guaranteed to be of the highest quality.

BORANA FORESTRY PROJECT
In January 2002, Michael Nickels was asked to set up a dryland forestry project on behalf of Borana for the surrounding community of Ngare Ndare Village. The aim of the project was to convert the 25 acres of severely eroded land into a productive agro forestry project.

In April Jeff Nugent, a permaculture specialist and Michael Nickels worked with approximately 60 people hired from the local community. The project site was fenced from goats, sheep and cattle and about 5km of south wales were dug across the contour to harvest most of the rainfall.
A few hundred straw bales were also used to capture topsoil and silt eroded from uphill. Roughly 70 species (180 varieties) of multi-purpose trees (indigenous and exotics) have been planted from seed throughout the land. The focus of this project will be education.

A restoration project has been launched on the neighbouring school property. A further restoration project was initiated on Chumvi Group Ranch which is on the south-western border of Borana.