Sourcing water while on the road

Hi Blue Galaxy

Some people have good filtering systems, but we have not purchased or needed these. We have three general water tanks and one dedicated drinking water. We also carry a 20 - 25 litre water jerry can or two in the vehicle for emergency back up and camping.

If water is not palatable but OK for washing and cooking, i draw it in buckets, let any sediment settle, then bail it out for use direct from the bucket rather than putting it in our general tanks. This saves our good water.

We can also get by with very little water when we need to be frugal, but i always have plenty reserved for drinking. Carrying a few 10 litre containers of purchased drinking water is a good back up for those areas where potable water is scarce. Most water is safe when given a good boil and can be used for making tea or coffee. If it is contaminated by chemical contaminants, boiling or adding sterilisers will not help. Boiling should kill any nasties so no need to add more chemicals.

When travelling around Europe many years ago, we always boiled water before drinking, and added fruit juice to make it palatable - often making the juice from cooking up roadside berries; very nice.

Motherhen

We just use whatever is available, some of it is a bit rank, some is a bit hard but never had any problems with gastric upsets.

hi bg, we carry a 100 litres of rain water and find that when we each have a coffee in the morning and drink beer for the rest of the day our water lasts a long time. That being said we always find any parks that have cabins usually have small rain water tanks with taps and we just top our fresh water from these. If we are going through a town often the scout halls and churches have tanks and we will grab a couple of buckets from them , We leave our bottles for the scouts and have never had a problem. See you on the road one day. cheers mark

It should be noted perhaps that when boiling water for sterilization, it is necessary to maintain it boiling for at least 5 minutes. Just bringing the water to the boil then taking it off is not sufficient as some bacteria is resistant and requires some time at the boil to be destroyed.

We chlorinate all our water when we pick it up and then filter our drinking water with 0.5um active carbon.
We have seperate tanks for wash and drink.

Cheers,
Peter
OKA196 Motorhome

Yep - I think getting fresh water might be an art form soon - so many places lock up the taps - we are always mindful of topping up water so we stay "on the sniff" all the time - asking at the servo when filling up is a good time (did that at Hawker in the Flinders the other day). As mentioned above, town halls, sporting precincts etc in small towns are often the go - they aren't usually so conscious of water lock up as the larger centres. One tourist information office in WA (Narrogin) invited us to fill up from their outside tap (they had a toilet dump point too - lovely people). We've even filled up from the side of a supermarket (Jamestown SA - bought some groceries - bit them for some water - they were happy). When all tactics fail though, buying packaged water is practical just for short term drinking.

WE leave home with 60 to 80 litres of rainwater in small containers inside troopy and the trailer tank full (when we take trailer). We like to use a number of small 3l (fruit juice bottles) containers for ease of handling. If we have any free space in the bottles we top them up at EVERY opportunity, even if the water is not so good. The small containers mean that we can do this easily without having to contaminate our good water supply.

We bush camp a lot but are frugal with water, but have learned how to have a satisfactory shower with about 3l. We are not too fussy about using bore water etc and have never had any problems (maybe we have good immune systems as we have lived most of our lives on rainwater - the best water going despite what city folk are told).

I cant remember ever buying water on bottles (having seen some testing results a few years ago that showed many brands had higher contamination levels than would be acceptable in a town supply). Boiling water is an option, but as Allan says, you need to boil for a while, and to be doubly sure let it cool then boil again. Tastes foul tho'! Lime juice cordial is good to mask the variable taste of the water that you get.

After all that we often arrive home carrying some of the water we set out with.

Cheers,
Val.

G'day all (again),
I am sure that (drinkable) water supplies are going to get harder to source as time goes on. I am conscious of not 'stealing' water and so I am assuming that everybody asks the owner of the water before 'taxing' it. I am very close to my legal towing capacity so am conscious of carrying more than I can. When I upgrade my tug, I will ensure that I put jerry can holders on the van to increase water supplies by 50ltr.
Thanks again everyone and it feels better that I am not alone on thinking about topping up water along the way.
Enjoy our great land.

Camps 5 web site is now listing additional information and I beleive in camps 6 this information will become available.

Perhaps "source of water" is something that could be listed there as well.

I finding that "sourcing" (hate that word, it is "newspeak", what is wrong with finding, getting, coming up with) water is part of the fun of camping and traveling.

Unfortunatly the "I will never be here again, so stuff everyone and everything" attitude is about and this will kill it for us all. Seems common with the Hippie / Wicked camper brigade.

Hi all,
I was given some good advice by some G/N at the beging of our trip he said go to the dead centre of town (Cemetary) as they always have water and also to buy one of these ..he then produced a security tap key in the shape of and X and it had 4 types of fittings on it ,he uses it as a last resort so I bought one and the 1st time I used it I was busted by a council worker ,I told hime I just need to fill my jerry can and he said yeah no worries ,the only reason we installed these a couple of years ago is because the local young lads would think its funny to leave the taps running over night we dont worry about you guys taking a lousy 20 ltrs so go for it just make sure you turn it right off,
so I dont know if its like that all over but it makes sense to me .

regards john.