Availability of Drinking Water in Central Qld

I've travelled through that area two or three times over the past 4 years. You can get water in any of the towns, a lot of the information centres have it available and ask for a donation to the RFDS.

A lot of the towns use or supplement with bore water. If your that religous about your imposing..take tinned veges with you..that way you won't use their water to cook with.

Have a sufficient water carrying capability to last many days before you leave.

Your $pending in the towns is more important than any responsible personal water use.

With the exception of Ilfracombe, Whirlwinder, most central western towns would have drinking water available. But a lot depends on your palate, as most towns, Tambo, Blackall, Barcaldine, and Winton use bore water for everything.Longreach has both bore & river water, or a mixture of both. The treated river water is palatable, but typical of any treated water. :-(

The easiest, albeit most expensive, would be to buy those 5, 10 or 15L containers of "spring water" at the supermarkets for drinking and use the town water for all other purposes.

Bob

When I am in towns where the water is known to be bore water with high mineralisation, I buy 10 litre casks of water from the supermarket as IMHO it is better to spend $10 on water than to have a Gippy tummy for days . Water for washing up etc is OK but you have to have a separate storage.

I try to only use town water from towns where the water comes from a river, but this does not work in WA in places like Karratha as the water is bore and very highly mineralized. I met a Karratha bloke with an 80 series cruiser at Millstream who had a 1year old genuine Toyota radiator spring a leak in the core, presumably because the dealer used town water.
Oh I am also such a pedant that I use demineralized water in my radiator and windscreen washers.
Regards Philip A

An environmentally friendly alternative is to carry a filter jug if you have the space.

http://www.brita.com.au/brita/au-au/cms/cpd_explore_pitcher.grid?ctcCategory=cpd_explore_pitcher

A good cuppa needs good water.

The right thing to do is 'ask' before just opening a convenient tap at a servo or park / toilet block etc , the bore water in some places leaves a bit to be desired , Winton for 1 , the water has a distinct sulfur smell BUT let it cool down and aerate the smell disappears and then becomes perfectly potable ,The bore water in Muttaburra is 'sweet' but now with the new bore [on line last year at 1000mtr deep ] it carries a bit more iron than the previous bore [850mtr] , still comes out a 65c …...

We stopped at a caravan park and asked if we could top up our water tank in the ute as we going further out and not sure about water availability. Most parks did not have a problem with our request (only a 50ltr tank), and we just gave a small donation to their box. We only used that water for cooking or small wash as we bought container water once we ran out of our home water (purely for my medical reason, or I would have had to boil water just for me to drink).

An extra potable water system for the car or van is not that expensive to install. In our van we have 3x80L non-potable tanks (once filled up from a cattle trough right out in woop woop) and 1x80 L of potable water. The vehicle also has a 50L s/s water tank. If at a servo and wanting to fill a water tank - I always ask before filling with fuel - usually 200

If you are that fussy get one of the filtration/sterilisation kits - 20L is a good size for turning muddy/smelly water into good drinkable stuff - especially with a final sterilising dose of a reasonable whisky.

John

On our recent travels around C/NW Qld I kept hearing stories about Ilfracombe having no water so I emailed Jesse & Cath Hitson at the Ilfracombe CP and the truth is they, after 3 years of drought, do'nt have a lot of water but they do have water sufficient to satisfy the travelling publics needs. Not only that, it's a real gem of a town and the natives are ultra friendly.

Thanks for all the helpful replies.
We still are to decide which way but for mine I would travel a bit further from big towns and support the littlies a bit more.
Ian