Water Filters & Overland Truck Safaris

Water filters - which one do I need for an overland truck safari?

I've just had a great conversation with a customer about water filters and deciding what one he needs to take on his adventure. What adventure is he doing? He is getting the bus to Australia. From the UK. Cool. Now this is a trip that one day I'll be doing.

The journey takes 6 months on board a converted Scania lorry, an overland truck safari grande! My customer said that he was travelling with UK to Oz Overland taking in 23 countries in one massive hit. This is the route they are taking. That's as many countries as I have been to in my life time -let alone cramming them into 6 months, and going through Iran. Iran is supposed to be stunning and you need to get there soon in case the Americans decide they want a regime change. I'm jealous, I'll admit it.

Think of all those fantastic passport stamps and visa's that look really rather grand when you get home. Think of all the fantastic photos, places, people. The three P's sounds like a marketing wheeze. But to me it is really what travel is about. Photo's, Places, People.

So that is the amazing adventure that my client is going on. On an overland truck safari they usually provide you with clean water, but this water is kept in storage tanks on the truck and then often cleaning using a chemical process, such as chlorine. Sometimes this may leave the water not tasting brill, so you may just want to put it through a water filter to give it a thorough clean - hopefully making it taste a little better.

We went through his options and he was advised to get a water filter bottle where you can just fill up the bottle and the top is the filter. Now, 6 months on the road is quite a long time and these bottles only do 150-200 litres of water until you need a new filter. You would probably need to be drink 2-3 liters of fluids a day, especially if it is hot and more than 3 liters if it is excessively hot or you sweat profusely. So you may need to think of a new filter on the bottle every 50-60 days. so on this trip you will need to take two/three spare water filters for the bottle. Which can be expensive.

Looking at other options the Katadyn Mini Water Filter looked like an ideal alternative, but you need to pump the water through the filter, from one container to another container, or directly from the source, be it a stream or a sink in your hotel. The Katadyn Mini Filter can filter up to 7000 liters of water before you need to replace the water filter. So this may be the better option.

Before you go on an overland truck safari, talk to the operator and see what they recommend and what would be the easiest for you to use. My customer is going for an Aquamira water filter bottle -because it what was recommended and because it is simple and easy to use.

What are your thoughts? Have you used water filters on an overland truck safari? Got a question on water filters? Post your comments!!

Want to read an overland truck safari review? Rob sent this one in after his trip to India.

Outdoor Technology

Outdoor Technology.

What type of technology accompanies you on a walk in the mountains or hills?

I've just started to ask this question as my list of gadgets, or Outdoor Technology increases - as does the weight of my rucksack.

Last week I was in the Lake District, enjoying some very cold and snowy weather and even a couple of mountain tops - one on the Uldale Common the other, Skiddaw, the 4th highest mountain in the Lakes and a beautiful climb at 8am on New Years Day.

These walks, plus a couple of shorter ones with my young family, saw me carrying a mind boggling array of these gadgets:

Canon Digital SLR
Canon Compact Camera
Panasonic Camcorder
Garmin GPS - Oregon 300
Mobile phone

Back at the cottage lay a net book and a Three mobile internet dongle, which proved useless as there was no signal!

Thankfully I wasn't silly enough to take all these things out with me each time. I carefully chose the gadget for the walk. Family walks, camcorder, great views on a crisp cold morning the DSLR, risk of getting a white out and general interest in walking stats (nerdy?) Garmin GPS and the compact camera and camcorder for when we went out on Uldale Common where a blizzard whipped up and we decided to try plastic survival bag sledging.

Now, me being me, I decided to do the sledging with my camcorder and camera in a pouch on my waist belt - where I could get easy access and film the action, makes sense I hear you say. What I didn't reckon on was the spindrift and the general snow from wiping out on the plastic survival bag sledging. Opening my case I found that everything was covered in snow, I had (if it was made from paper) a very white and soggy loooking set of gadgets. Oops I thought. Best get them dried off and hope that they still work. Amazingly, like when I lost my DSLR into a crevasse for a week, I got them home, dried them off and they are working fine. I'm very impressed - but will be more careful next time.

For the the walk up Skiddaw I was more prepared -I put my DSLR into a plastic bag into the camera case. Perfect I thought. I can even shoot through it and not get wet gloves all over the camera. On the saddle between Carl Side and Skiddaw I was foiled by the wind with the plastic bag being whipped away from me as if I wasn't holding it. It was a wild day. But the pictures look great (coming soon). On the summit, spindrift was getting into my case again so I made a mental note to take a dry sack next time and attach it firmly to the daysack. The Garmin GPS fared better, being waterproof and rugged, it performed well at every glance, giving me my altitude, stop time, walking time and average speed and a maximum speed of 19.6kmh (more sledging!).

Technology is amazing and what is available can really add some fun into your walking, especially when you are back in the warmth of your cottage reviewing sledging on the lap top, looking at your amazing pictures, thinking that was awesome whilst checking out your walk stats and wondering what the hell I was doing stopped for an hour on a 5 hour walk? Heck - you could even upload your pics to Facebook if the dongle worked.

Be warned though - take care of your gear and don't let the snow into it nor the rain. And spend some time getting to know it before you go out - I'm sure my Garmin GPS and Panasonic Camcorder can do a lot more than I manged to get them to do. Have fun - Love the Adventure and may technology help you re-live it.