Page 68 - royal-times-16-17

3RD YEAR GEOGRAPHY TRIP

On Tuesday 11th October all of the pupils in 3rd year headed out to the bus
at 9 o’clock. We had a journey of an hour and a half down to Mount Lucas
wind farm, Co. Offaly. When we arrived we were all amazed at how tall the
wind turbines were; 150m tall! I was also surprised that I didn’t hear any
noise as I had expected to.
We headed into the newly built wind turbine centre and sat down to listen
to a woman explaining how the wind farm works. At Mount Lucas they
have 28 wind turbines each generating 3MW each which is then amplified
so that it can go onto the National Grid in order to supply our homes with
electricity. We then got to see what it would be like to stand on top of
the wind turbines with VR (Virtual reality) consoles. It was quite scary to
look down, it was such a long way! After that we went out to look at the
wind turbines. When we got closer we could hear a gentle swoosh every
time a blade went past. We then got on the bus and headed for Kilbeggan
Distillery.
When we arrived a Kilbeggan Distillery we got a tour of the old distillery
which was driven completely by a water wheel using the river. We then
looked around the new distillery that used electricity and noticed that
times have changed a lot in whiskey terms. The teachers then tasted the
whiskey. On the way home we had a quick stop in a petrol station and then
arrived back at school at 4:15pm.
Rachel Alexander

68 The Royal Times 2016-2017