By: Blonde Two
Mr Blonde Two has recently been very generous (and trusting) and lent Six-Foot-Blonde the water filter that he bought for a trip to Iceland in 2007 (MSR MiniWorks EX). Six-Foot requires it for a canoe trip to Scotland later this year.
Whilst we were in Up-North delivering said filter (ceramic and carbon) and previously mentioned canoe; we decided to test the cleansing power of this clever device on the unsavoury looking waters of the Rochdale Canal.
BLONDE WARNING: DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME!! As any canoeist or kayaker will tell you, river or canal water is dangerous stuff; as it can harbour Leptospirosis (Weil’s Disease), usually via the medium of rats’ urine. For more information – http://www.rospa.com/leisure-safety/water/advice/weils-disease/
Our experiment went like this:
1. Take your MSR water filter and test it on some tap water. You will find that you have something even nicer than Malvern water to drink (don’t tell anyone that I said that!)
2. Take a bottle of clear tap water and an empty bottle to the Rochdale Canal (other canals are available).
3. Marvel at the brown colour of the water and the complete stupidity of your idea.
4. Carry on anyway and pump (or ask the blokes to pump) the water through the filter into the empty bottle.
5. Compare the colour of the water in the two bottles. We were impressed by the clarity of the filtered water. (We were also impressed that Six-Foot appears to have three heads in this photo.)
6. Be really stupidly Blonde, and take a sip of the filtered Rochdale Canal water.
7. Go home, brush your teeth, feel a bit sick, look up the relative sizes of Leptospirosis bacteria and the holes in the filter (not favourable), panic a bit, eat your tea, write a blog post and marvel at your commitment to your blog fans’ entertainment.
Talking from experience as someone who lives on the banks of the Rochdale canal and sees what goes into it, i would have to be desperate to drink it. Even filtered. Numerous factories used to discharge into it as is the case of most canals in UK and so there must still be traces of chemicals that filter manufacturers specify will not be filtered out. You are indeed brave blondes. Please keep looking in the mirror and if there is any sign of the blonde turning green go to your nearest hospital.
Blonde hair still intact and enjoying some sunshine on Dartmoor. I promise never to drink canal water again!
When backpacking any water I drink during the day will have come from a proper source or cadged from one along the way, but more often, when shopping allows I will be carrying Fanta or Lucozade. I f I wild camp and take water from a stream I only use it after it has been boiled. I once drank from a spring high up in the French alps through desperation and suffered dire consequences (now I always carry Imodium).
I wouldn’t have wanted to drink that filtered canal water, good luck.
Blonde One always has Lucozade with her. We used to be allowed when we were children.
Strongly recommend using silver tablets, or chlorine tablets and neutralisers, in addition.
Once – and once only – had to take water from a bog on a mountain in the Lakes when backpacking during a heat wave. Filtered through a cotton handkerchief and 2 solid inches of paper towel, treated with silver tablet for an hour and boiled for good measure, it had no ill effects.
Overkill? Well for my money, that is good!
I used to swim in the Leeds-Liverpool canal back in the late forties and I assume some of its waters reached my alimentary tract. But, hey, it was free, unlike the municipal swimming pools which cost tuppence or thruppence a go. I gave up as a result of reading the newspapers. Polio suddenly became the headline story and even I – driven to all sorts of savings by my West Riding roots – was terrified by the thought of ending up in one of those pre-coffin containers which did the breathing for you.
Walking in the Lakes I never carried drinks and drank from streams, the narrower the better. This was something of a judgement call and depended on how high up the mountain I was. I was guided by the mountaineer/writer Frank Smythe in this; he’d been told that Alpine streams carried tiny particles of silica and that these could, in effect, sand-blast your innards. Being an eternal romantic he ignored the advice. Carrying water in those pre-plastic days would have been a severe burden.
I’m not suggesting others should follow my cockeyed approach. I’d like to say I was lucky but I know le Grand Seigneur was saving me for a much grimmer fate: going mad in my latter years trying to make sense out of French subjunctive verbs. That I can formulate que j’aille proves I’m holding out, but not for much longer