Checking the cam.....practising night zooming....no landies out so not a sighting.....hmmmmm .... mystery...good though :lol:

Penny in SA wrote:

The water they would use to fill the waterhole would come from a borehole! There is no ways that they would use water normally used for human consumption to fill the WH as it would be far tooooooo expensive. Often when we go on holiday we are told to not drink the water from the gardens as it is borehole water and even the tap water has different minerals etc. to what we are used to in the City so we avoid drinking out of the taps altogether and rather use bottled water to drink. In Kgalagadi in October last year we even had to use bottled water to cook with as the water is so brackish - it cost us a whack to keep buying as we were there for 15 days! The folk who live up there are used to the different chemicals and minerals in the water so it does not upset their systems but we would rather not take the chance especially when we are on holiday!

I have drunk borehole water many times in Southern Africa - for most farms it is the only water that is available and they do not have the resources, or the ability, to chlorinate it.

Water in the cities and towns may be chlorinated but in the countryside of Africa it is not - and I have never been advised to take bottled water as borehole water is perfectly safe to drink. It may be 'brackish' or taste different to what we are used to but borehole water has been filtered through many layers of sand and rocks and, as such, any potentially dangerous organisms have been filtered out.

However, in many countries, water that is used to irrigate gardens and crops is sometimes taken from 'other sources' such as the run-off from sewage. In this case I avoid even getting wet from garden sprinklers - eeeew!

In Africa, the danger of water comes from drinking water that is 'standing water' - from pools, waterholes, rainwater etc, that has been lying for several days - the organisms that cause disease have had a chance to multiply to levels which can cause anything from diarrhoea and sickness to Cholera.

I have even drunk water from a dry river-bed, by digging down a few inches into the sand, with no ill-effects. In fact the water tasted very good!

Any tap water supplied by Game Reserves or farms in Southern Africa is usually safe to drink.
Most of the water in the 'bush' is supplied via boreholes or, if it comes from a dam or river, is filtered - they do not have pipelines from the towns/cities and if the staff can drink it safely, you can be assured that you can do so too.