Beware drinking river water.

I have drunk the water up that way plenty of times, no problems, but there is always that thought in the back of your head. What is upstream just around the corner.

Better safe than sorry. Boil it first.

And if you do boil water to sterilize it, bring it to a rolling boil and maintain that for 3 minutes, then allow to cool.
Merely bringing it to the boil is insufficient.

Creek or river water if running is usually the cleanest around (depending on enviroment) If you are used to drinking town water it can upset you stomach sometimes though. I have always drank river water, creek water, dam water and on the farm water from the cow trough. Never noticed it having an effect on us. When I'm in town though I can smell the chlorine in the water. Hope it wasn't the cooking lol.

Josh

Yeah mate you can be caught out by the clear pristine look of the water...I learn't my lesson back in 89' when i was drinking water from Angusvale near Dargo..For the next two days while camping i reckon i nearly filled the pit dunny,plus the dehydration...Eventually left a bit early and straight to the Doc, ended up having an injection in my ass...

The DR also said that bugs and stuff blow off the grazing areas into the rivers etc etc...

Never drunk straight from a river since and if i do its boiled and NEVER had an issue since.Some people have iron guts too and can also nearly eat off meat lol,i'm afraid i am not one of them.....

It just goes to show................

"DON'T JUDGE A BROOK BY ITS COLOUR" LOL

Used to be the case that if it was clear, cold and fast running then ok but these days I think it's best to play it safe with your drinking water ... even in Australia it's all too easy to pick up a dose of giardia or cryptosporidium, overseas can be even more dangerous. As suggested above, bring hard boil for three minutes and let cool before drinking if no access to ultrafiltration, ozone or other treatment technology.

My stomach must have been tougher when I was young then

We lived in a hut in the bush 5 miles below where a septic tank emptied into the river.

When rainwater was a bit short we pumped it out of the river into tanks and never got sick..


Di d get sick one year when went up to a hut at top of Pass and drank the water which had been in the tanks since prev summer.

Tasted weird but not to worry.. 1 mile down the track WOOPS both ends erupted.

Went back up to look in tank when things settled down.

Found 3 dead Keas (mountain Parrots) in there One was just a skeleton.

Didnt do that again. Were pretty hungry by the time we got the 4 miles home eventually ROFL

And we all know what the fish are doing in it ... be safe, you never know what the cows and pigs are doing in it upstream

You didn't buy any take away food on the way home, by any chance?

I stopped for lunch down from Tom Grogin on Saturday and tasted the water and it didn't seem right, that was about a 1k or 2k down stream from the crossing in to Vic. Chatting with some others who had came down from Davis and they had been crook on the water too.

Years ago hiking up a river/creek fishing for hours. Been drinking the water all day as it was stinking hot. I wanted to make it to a water fall I'd been told about. Wish I hadn't. When I got to the water fall I found a very dead sheep blown up like a balloon, floating in the water. Worst bit was the only way home was down the river as the banks were covered in blackberries. Never did get sick though.

Josh