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What's this blog all about?

Hi, I'm Nicola - welcome to a blog begun in 2012 about family travel around the world, without leaving the UK.

I love travel adventures, but to save cash and keep my family's carbon footprint lower, I dreamt up a unique stay-at-home travel experience. So far I've visited 110 countries... without leaving the UK. Join me exploring the next 86! Or have a look at the "countries" you can discover within the UK by scrolling the labels (below right). Here's to happy travel from our doorsteps.

Around 2018 I tried a new way of writing my family's and my own UK travel adventures. Britain is a brilliant place for a staycation, mini-break and day trips. It's also a fantastic place to explore so I've begun to write up reports of places that are easy to reach by public transport. And when they are not that easy to reach I'll offer some tips on how to get there.

See www.nicolabaird.com for info about the seven books I've written, a link to my other blog on thrifty, creative childcare (homemadekids.wordpress.com) or to contact me.

Friday 22 June 2007

Make your own hydro pumping station

Nicola, Pete, Lola and Nell want to travel the world with a difference. We hope to get a taste of many countries without adding to climate change (with needless emissions from aeroplanes) or having to waste hours of holiday time in airport terminals. We hope our adventures inspire you to take a Grand Tour of your neighbourhood. Here's an experiment copied from Lola's travel journal:

Experimant! This is how a hydro pump storage power station (eg, Ben Cruachan by Loch Awe) works.

Need: 1 glass of full water. 1 sausepan. 1 straw.

1) Pour the water over your finger into the sausepan

2) Suck the water back into the glass

3) Repeat this until your board of it

Notes: This is how a hydro station works. First the water falls down from a reservoir hitting the turbine so it generates electiricty that gets sold to the national grid. At night the water gets pumped back up when the electricity is cheaper to buy.

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