The oldest stones in the world take you where?

This blog is about family travel around the world without leaving the UK. Impossible? No. This post takes a trip around the oldest stone circle in the world - in the heart of Wiltshire - and triggers some ideas about other ancient stone creations from Africa to South America. Words from Nicola Baird (see www.nicolabaird.com for more info about my books and blogs).

Avebury wasn't as crowded as this photo implies - this group of all ages, ranging from mid 80s to 2 and a half, are all friends of mine. Having a walk before lunch made a family celebration even more enjoyable.

Stones are all pretty old - but the complex sarsens at Avebury are hands-down winners. Whatever it was at Avebury - and it's certainly the largest stone circle in the world - was built 200 generations ago (it's roughly four people to 100 years).

So you can go there - and I took a train to Swindon and then a half hour bus ride direct to Avebury - and imagine yourself in any of the other stone wonders of the world, such as:

• the Parthenon in Greece, (447BC)
• the Mayan pyramids of Mexico (AD300)
• the end of the Incas in Peru 
• Great Zimbabwe (AD1350)
• Easter Island, Chile (AD1000-1600)

I expect Alexander Keiller found excavating Avebury as tricky as I found beating Nell at Connect 4 - one of the outdoor games provided by the National Trust.

Or you can enjoy the child-friendly facilities provided by the National Trust (they are very big on kids doing stuff - ideally 50 things to do before you are 11 and three-quarters) which for us involved a spot of Connect 4, an inter-active museum and a hunt for rare great crested newts along the edge of the pond.

There were also giant draughts boards and mini trampolines - as if we were at a wonderful street party.

Don't forget to have a good walk around the stones - it can be a short stroll or a long yomp over to manmade Silbury hill or even the long barrows that surround the main site.

More information and opening times at http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/avebury/ A nice surprise: it's free entry for English Heritage members.

Shark adventure

Nicola, Pete, Lola and Nell want to travel around the world without hiking up their carbon footprint. Can you help us? This post is from Nicola and Nell.

"I'd never seen sharks before. I really was interested," says Nell.

We took her and six friends (plus Lola) so eight - because she was eight - to the London Aquarium (see line-up above). The Aquarium is a bit dismal at the moment because are building works until Easter. But the kids adored seeing a tank full of huge sharks swimming in a Pacific ocean (salted Thames water) and then listening to a talk about the different types of shark. Behind the acetate tank the sharks looked very menacing as they loomed up to the sides and then dodged around the replica Easter Island heads.

Horrifyingly 100s of 1000s of sharks are killed each year for their fins - to make the supposed delicacy shark fin soup. I used to like eating fish, and when I did found it hard to snorkel as my mouth kept watering... but really how could a fin look tasty? It's mystifying. Meanwhile the shark keepers did a great job explaining to the children why they really shouldn't pick shark's fin soup if they ever go to an Asian country serving it. Lesson learnt we all went and ate homemade cake (made by Nell!) on the grass near the London Eye.

Cut the carbon marchers

Pete, Nicola, Lola, 9, and Nell, 6, spent three happy months during the summer of 2007 traveling around Britain. Now we’re home but the travel bug is still there. Join us for occasional sightseeing plus tips on how to shrink your carbon footprint…

Since early July a handful of men and women have been walking around Britain on the Cut the Carbon march (backed by Leonard DiCaprio). This event is organized by Christian Aid – 1,000 miles in 80 days – and should take them from Belfast, via Edinburgh and through England to team up with the Labour party conference in Bournemouth on 25 September and then to London for 2 October and the day of the Climate Change Bill (please, don't let this open the door to nuclear).

On our summer travels we saw many posters advertising the Cut the Carbon marchers arrival but always seemed to miss them by a week, so when we realized we could meet and greet them at Bristol and still go to our friends John and Ann’s wedding party it felt like serendipity.

It was disappointing that there weren’t that many at the event in a city of just under 400,000 people – less than 300. Low turnout meant that Nell was able to snaffle some of the cakes made by the Mothers' Union while the rest of us enjoyed a picnic outside Bristol’s cathedral listening to the steel drums go, and later some speeches.

The marchers focused on big picture problems - rather than ones they'd seen on their journey - talking about the destruction of Easter Islands' trees (and therefore micro-climate) in order to make those infamous big and small eared stone head statues and the difficulties changed weather makes to those living in the Congo (DRC), as if there weren't enough problems in that country already.

You can support the Cut the Carbon march virtually by logging on to Christian Aid’s website and joining their shoelace protest or emailing various companies, eg, Barclays and Morrisons, to try and convince business to make more effort to publically explain how they are reducing emissions. The walkers are regular bloggers so you can get the inside story on the web.

Good luck to them all: I so wish I could have joined them but the time just isn’t right.