Tap water...

In Australia, we are fortunate enough to have clean drinking water directly from the tap. In my recent time in Asia, I have developed a greater appreciation for this as drinking from the tap in Asia can be a gamble with your health. Fortunately, bottled water is around 20cents per litre and much less if you buy in bulk, so it is still easily accessible. It just means that you need to stop at a shop to top up your water bottle during a ride, rather than pulling over at a park water fountain.

Upon my return to Australia, I was shocked to taste Brisbane water. I'm sure at some stage you have visited another town and the water from the tap has tasted 'funny'. As every town sources their water from different locations and goes through different filtering processes, there can be slight differences in the taste from town to town. When visiting, my nieces and nephews have always claimed that Brisbane water tastes 'muddy' but I have always shrugged this off as a figment of their imagination. However, after drinking so much bottled water in Asia, I returned home and found out what they meant. Perhaps it was because of the recent flooding or a dirty glass, but the Brisbane water did taste 'muddy'.

After a two week stay in Hong Kong and consequently, two weeks of bottled water, I arrived in Munich to the pleasure of drinking tap water again. This time, however, it is even better than usual as not only is the water ice cold due to the weather, but it comes from the Alps not to far off in the distance.

In Australia, we pay an absolute fortune for water the comes from a mountain spring in the Alps, which seems slightly pompous to me. Here, the Alpine water flows freely. The river that passes through Munich is the Isar, the 4th longest river in Bavaria that extends 295km from its source in the Alps. The water is ice cold and crystal clear. In a beer garden in the middle of Munich, Viktualienmarkt, there are water fountains at which you can fill your water bottle up with ice cold water fresh from the Alps. I took an Evian water bottle and filled it with water that is more genuine than the water that originally came in it.