Post by Mike Harding on Mar 22, 2024 9:15:29 GMT 10
Water is usually our major difficulty when camping - we use a lot of it, it's heavy to carry and we have to travel to get potable water.
I live permanently in my caravan and generally camp in the forests of Victoria and southern NSW. I always camp by water for stays of more than a few days in order that I may take all but drinking/cooking water from the dam or creek.
For potable water I arrive with full tanks of 150L on the caravan and then ASAP head into the nearest town with 2 X 25L and 4 X 15L containers for potable water. I've been tracking my potable water usage lately and discovered I use about 70L per week, I'm a bit liberal with it and often rinse my hands under the tap when cooking and wash off chopping boards if they have only been used for vegetables and such. Therefore my caravan tank will last for about two weeks and the six containers (110L) for 10 days or so. Having an excess of potable water is always a good thing and I have never come close to running out.
Bunnings do a good range of water containers - I suggest using 15L ones, 25L is heavy to lift into the car:
Water containers
I transfer water from the containers to the caravan tanks with a small submersible pump and a 12V battery:
eBay pump
As mentioned I take all my non potable water from the dam/creek and this is used for showering, dishes, laundry, hand washing etc. A bowl of water sits on an outside table with liquid soap and is used for handwashing - hand washing under a running tap uses a lot of water - I change the water in the bowl at least once and often twice a day to minimise bacterial transfer although the residual liquid soap from rinsing my hands probably does a good job of keeping bugs at bay.
Although most rivers and dams in rural Australia are fairly clean they may well contain some E.coli bacterial from animal faeces and as I use this water for showering it's hard not to get the odd drop into one's mouth. To that end I purify all creek water with sodium hypochlorite (bleach), this is a good one to use:
Woolworths bleach
Any bleach you use for water purification *must not* contain anything other than sodium hypochlorite and sodium hydroxide, cheap "own brand" bleaches usually fulfill this requirement. It's also important to use the correct quantity which is 1 part in 2000 for bleach with 1% chlorine. You'll notice the bleach I link to is 4% chlorine so I make up a 1L container with 250mL of bleach and 750mL of potable water, this is close enough.
Now we have 1% bleach so if we wish to purify the water in a 10L bucket we must add 5mL of 1% bleach to the bucket (10,000mL / 2000 = 5mL), stir it around a bit and allow it to sit for 30 minutes. 5mL is not much and you should not exceed that significantly - I use a plastic syringe for accuracy but a measuring teaspoon is 5mL.
I use the word purify a little loosely above; the 1% bleach will usually turn clear creek water into drinking water but if the water contains particulate matter you'll need to filter it first and if the water contains chemicals (farm runoff) forget it, we cannot remove chemicals in the bush. There are also a couple of nasty parasites bleach will not easily kill but they are rare.
And that's how I've survived for water these past five years of living in the forests.
I live permanently in my caravan and generally camp in the forests of Victoria and southern NSW. I always camp by water for stays of more than a few days in order that I may take all but drinking/cooking water from the dam or creek.
For potable water I arrive with full tanks of 150L on the caravan and then ASAP head into the nearest town with 2 X 25L and 4 X 15L containers for potable water. I've been tracking my potable water usage lately and discovered I use about 70L per week, I'm a bit liberal with it and often rinse my hands under the tap when cooking and wash off chopping boards if they have only been used for vegetables and such. Therefore my caravan tank will last for about two weeks and the six containers (110L) for 10 days or so. Having an excess of potable water is always a good thing and I have never come close to running out.
Bunnings do a good range of water containers - I suggest using 15L ones, 25L is heavy to lift into the car:
Water containers
I transfer water from the containers to the caravan tanks with a small submersible pump and a 12V battery:
eBay pump
As mentioned I take all my non potable water from the dam/creek and this is used for showering, dishes, laundry, hand washing etc. A bowl of water sits on an outside table with liquid soap and is used for handwashing - hand washing under a running tap uses a lot of water - I change the water in the bowl at least once and often twice a day to minimise bacterial transfer although the residual liquid soap from rinsing my hands probably does a good job of keeping bugs at bay.
Although most rivers and dams in rural Australia are fairly clean they may well contain some E.coli bacterial from animal faeces and as I use this water for showering it's hard not to get the odd drop into one's mouth. To that end I purify all creek water with sodium hypochlorite (bleach), this is a good one to use:
Woolworths bleach
Any bleach you use for water purification *must not* contain anything other than sodium hypochlorite and sodium hydroxide, cheap "own brand" bleaches usually fulfill this requirement. It's also important to use the correct quantity which is 1 part in 2000 for bleach with 1% chlorine. You'll notice the bleach I link to is 4% chlorine so I make up a 1L container with 250mL of bleach and 750mL of potable water, this is close enough.
Now we have 1% bleach so if we wish to purify the water in a 10L bucket we must add 5mL of 1% bleach to the bucket (10,000mL / 2000 = 5mL), stir it around a bit and allow it to sit for 30 minutes. 5mL is not much and you should not exceed that significantly - I use a plastic syringe for accuracy but a measuring teaspoon is 5mL.
I use the word purify a little loosely above; the 1% bleach will usually turn clear creek water into drinking water but if the water contains particulate matter you'll need to filter it first and if the water contains chemicals (farm runoff) forget it, we cannot remove chemicals in the bush. There are also a couple of nasty parasites bleach will not easily kill but they are rare.
And that's how I've survived for water these past five years of living in the forests.