Tuesday, May 3, 2011

When good things in life are free!

It takes me by surprise when I find something pure and good for my family - and its FREE!

A while ago I decided to only use distilled water to drink. The distiller is great but it uses electricity and it's therefore not "cheap" water so I have not been using it for cooking or the kettle.

A few weeks ago a friend and I decided we were going to rectify this situation and we bought ourselves the correct type of plastic 25l bottles so that we could store water for use in cooking. It cost R155 with 25l of Oasis Water.

This 25l was quickly used up in my kitchen...but I had a plan. Another friend of mine has been going to the "Newlands Spring" for years to collect her own pure spring water - for FREE!

Today I took my son with me (to do the heavy lifting - I am so grateful for this boy) and we filled our bottle. Expecting to be the only weird "greenie" there ,I was surprised and delighted to find an assortment of wonderful people there QUEUING for the water :-)

The one man was an old Islamic man who used to play there as a child before Group Areas Act and still comes weekly for his water, there is also a religious significance for him. Another man, in his 70's has been using this water for ages too - and he distills his own beer and whiskey from it. And yet another gent arrived in his Mercedes SLK with his bottles for his water.


This spring is used by SA Breweries for their beer and they say: "it has the perfect PH 5.6 like rainwater, correct mineral content and is free of contaminents." The water has been tested and is pure for my cooking needs.

The little retaining wall was built around it in 1841...cool hey?!? Anyway, it was a delight to find this good thing for free. Here's a map for you if you would like to get some yourself - Capetoneans that is :-)It wouldn't be free if one of my faithful internationals came - du-uh!

3 comments:

African Bliss said...

I can just imagine the day. What a lovely experience, it must have been meeting all those people at the foountain all with a common goal.

africanaussie said...

Like gathering around the well.....

Tara_LB said...

I've been there; there's a Geocache there :) http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?wp=gc22c1z&Submit6=Go