1. No hauling of water crates from the beverage market
2. Unlimited water at any time (comes from the water pipe)
3. Excellent quality of the water (the Munich drinking water comes fresh from the Alpine foothills)
4. Much cheaper than mineral water from the bottleshop (carbonating 60l with C02 is about € 8.95 – as of 2018)

We had several gas cylinders, so we did not always had to run for exchanging an empty one, and several pretty attractive glass bottles which also looked good on the tabel.

In Australia, we wanted to continue to use our “sparkling equipment” and since Sodastream® is represented worldwide, we also saw no problem in filling our carbonated bottles on the Gold Coast. Well …

First of all, the employees of the removalist refused to pack the gas bottles, even if they were empty. Gas bottles of any kind should generally not be packed in moving containers. Well, then our friends back in Munich were happy about some more exchange cylinders.

Arriving in Australia, we immediately bought a new filled carbonated cylinder after unpacking our removal boxes and the water bubbler. Then at home, I realized that Sodastream® in Australia uses other screw threads for their devices. Even adapters or usable spare parts were not available.

Sodastream® Australia writes on its website under the FAQs:

“Can I use my CO2 Cylinder that I bought outside of Australia or take a CO2 Cylinder bought in Australia abroad?

Australian CO2 Cylinders use a specific cylinder thread, so you may not be able to find these compatible Cylinders anywhere other than in Australia. If you have bought a Cylinder or a Sparkling Water Maker from outside of Australia, it will not work.”

I should have read that in Europe. So our Sodastream® sparkling water maker we bought in Europe was useless :-(. So we had to buy a new device, but anyway, we could use the 3 brought glass bottles then – we thought at least, because wherever we looked, nowhere we found a suitable device from Sodastream® It was not until we bought a standard plastic bottle kit here, that I later read on the Sodastream® website that they would now be offering sparkling water makers for glass bottles in Australia (called “Crystal Titan”), but where?

In any case, we could now indulge in the bubbling experience, because same arguments for using one in Germany would also apply here in Australia, right?

1. No hauling of water crates from the beverage market
   Also applies in Australia, although there are no water crates here but only cardboard boxes and you throw the disposable plastic bottles into the recycling container after use.
2. Unlimited water at any time (comes from the water pipe)
3. Excellent quality of the water
   Unlike Sodastream® in Germany, Sodastream® Australia does not refer to the excellent water quality of tap water…. The tap water in Australia is safe to drink everywhere, but depending on the region, more or less chlorine and fluoride are added. You can smell that immediately, when you let the water run out of the tap. And especially with freshly bubbled water, the chlorine smell unfolds extremely. And the opinions differ if chlorine is always harmless in the amounts added to the tap water  …
4. Much cheaper than bottled water
   A CO2-filling costs about AUD 19.50 which is – according to the current exchange rate – about €12.25 so 37% more expensive than in Germany. If you do not calculate the purchase price of the sparkling water maker, you get 60 litres of bubbled water per cylinder to a litre price of AUD 0.33. At Coles, however, one litre of carbonated spring water (and no added chlorine) costs AUD 0.53.

Nevertheless, we have decided again for fizzing. Since recycling in Australia is not yet very well-endowed, most of the household waste (also from the recycling bins) ends up in the landfill (waste incineration does not exist in Australia). And since we drink about 3 and more litres of water a day, that would be about 750 1.5l plastic bottles from our household for the dump. Add to that the effort of buying, storing and always having sufficient supplies at home.

The problem of chlorine could be addressed with filters, but filters are not cheap and must always be replaced regularly for hygienic reasons. And regarding the amount of our water consumption we would then instead of buying water bottles regularly buying water filters …

We leave the water in large glass containers open for at least 24 hours, which allows the chlorine to escape almost completely. And then you can drink freshly bubbled water again, aaaah …

The post Sodastream® – fresh drinking water at any time? appeared first on GoAustralia.

Freezing Aircon

Perhaps it also has something to do with the urge of Australians for coolness (in terms of both temperature and behaviour). An essential part of this is the operation of a proper air-conditioning and not only in buildings, but also in vehicles. Three days ago on a Sunday morning at 6 o’clock I took a bus (I should rather have taken my bike). While the temperature was about 20 °C outside it was freezing inside the bus. The air conditioning of the bus was set to full power, which is standard in public buses. Usually it takes a while for me to get cold (I had only a short pair of running pants and a T-shirt on), but not in that bus.

Cold Beer

Generally I prefer cooler regions of the earth (friends wondered why of all things I moved to subtropical Queensland. Well …) But as I said, people like it cool here as well, especially regarding alcoholic drinks. In a “drinking-hall” (this is my expression for taverns in Queensland) you can see beer taps, which are covered in a centimetre thick layer of ice (in this case the air conditioning is not the cause of that). In this regard, the Australians fortunately have broken with an English tradition. The English habit of serving lukewarm beer. I can only welcome that.

BYO

In Australia, it is common to bring your own drinks to a dinner invitation or party. This is also the case at the many BYO restaurants, where BYO stands for “bring your own”. So you bring your own alcohol and pay only a “corkage fee”. However, the term is not quite correct any longer. 99% of wine bottles in Australia only have screw tops, not to mention beer.

Cooling Containers

To carry your booze to the party or BYO-restaurant, one can purchase the most unusual cooling containers. E.g. if you look for “Fridges & Coolers” at the Australian Boot & Camping chain BCF, you will have 147 items to choose from. In addition to 200l (!) ice boxes you will find the corresponding size denominations such as “Sixer Cooler”, “9 Can Soft Cooler” or for the big thirst “30 Can Soft Cooler”. Furthermore, you can buy portable WIFI Fridge Freezers, with a USB outlet for charging phones & tablets. In addition, an app allows you to monitor and control your fridge in the back of your ute whilst on the move. Or consider obtaining a “Large Ice Blanket”, which you simply wrap around food and drinks.

In other shops, there are glamorous looking handbags, which are nothing more than cooler containers for a bottle of wine or champagne. I have also seen cooler backpacks, which from the outside look like a normal hiking backpack (only the destination of your hike will be a more extensive party).

In addition, there are thousands of relatively normal cooler bags with more or less tasteful patterns on it. It certainly depends on whether you want to attract attention and/or share your more or less expensive wine … These bags are often made of a neoprene material, which usually protects divers and not their bottles. But here it is the other way around, where you rather dive into a party.

I now go to our COOL fridge and get a COOL drink … Cheers!

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Australia is not necessarily comparable to England in terms of rainfall and rare dry periods. Australia is the driest continent on earth. Nevertheless, the Australians have fully adapted the passion of the English for a good lawn. Every house, every garden, every park and every street has lawns. Outside city centres the so-called footpath on a street often consists only of a lawn strip.

And Australians spend a lot of time with their lawns. Very important is the regular lawn mowing. Even after weeks of dryness, when the lawn is often nothing more than a brown area burned by the sun, people still mow their lawns. Cutting the edges is also important. And for all that you have the right strong and noisy gasoline-powered machine, according to the motto, the stronger and louder the better. On all days of the week (including Sunday), the rattling of lawn mowers, edge trimmers, line trimmers or leaf blowers is heard almost every time of the day. If you go into a usual hardware store, you will always find a huge selection of these devices. Electric garden tools are rare here.

And if you do not want to take care of the lawn yourself, just hire one of the countless self-employed men (yes, that’s just men), who mow their costumers’ lawns somewhere all week. “You love the idea of being your own Boss, choosing your own hours, working outside the sun and making an immediate difference to a customer’s lawn (and life)” (from a promotional page for a lawn mower franchise). Working outside in the sun has a very different meaning in Queensland than in Central Europe.

A good lawn also needs a lot of water. Even though Australia is not a country that has abundant water, it does not stop people from generously sharing their drinking water with their turf. And also for that purpose you find whole rows of shelves with irrigation technology in the hardware store.

By the way, someone just mows the lawn in front of my window while I write this post ….

There is always someone somewhere mowing the lawn ….

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