Caravan family's warning after simple mistake leaves them 'extremely sick' in rural hospital
The young family have been travelling full-time on the road for eight months. Now, they're offering advice to others after their 'scary' ordeal.
A caravan family has lifted the lid on the "scary" reality of life on the road, issuing a warning to travelling Aussies after they all fell "extremely sick" from drinking what they thought was safe potable water.
Bek and Doug Roberts have been travelling full-time with their kids Ava, 8 and Conner, 6 for the last eight months. They sold their house in Jimboomba, just south of Brisbane, before hitting the road for an epic Aussie adventure.
But trouble arose while staying in a caravan park in the "middle of rural Australia", despite taking all the right precautions, Bek, 35, told Yahoo News this week. "The kids were nonstop vomiting, soft stools and we all had stomach cramps," she said.
The family, who share thier adventures on their Instagram page The Scenic Route, had installed an inline carbon water filter in their caravan and had another filter under the sink. "We thought this would be ok if we only filled our caravan tanks with potable water," Bek explained.
But that wasn't the case, and within a few days of using the caravan park's potable water "we all started getting sick". They were staying in a rural part of the Northern Territory at the time.
"Ava was first, she was vomiting non-stop for four days. Connor was next and was again very sick," Bek shared. "At first we just thought it was a case of gastro and were just going to let it run its course.
"But when the kids weren’t getting better and were starting to lose weight and couldn’t get out of bed, we knew it wasn’t just gastro and sought medical help".
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Warning to caravanners visiting the Top End during dry season
The family visited a rural hospital just over the WA border where tests confirmed the family had all contracted giardia — an intestinal infection caused by a parasite found in contaminated and unsafe water.
"It was scary, especially when you see your kids so sick and you’re in the middle of a rural region of the NT/WA with limited medical services," Bek said, revealing they were given antibiotics to help treat the parasitic infection.
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"We ended up having to stay in the area for an extra week just to make sure the kids were on the mend before we started our month on the Gibb River Road as there were no medical services in that region," she explained.
"We later heard it's known for giardia to get into the water in the Top End's dry season. We also heard this from a few of the locals in the area who got sick during the months of the dry season also."
Advice for travelling Aussies visiting remote areas
Now, the travelling family is warning others not to make the same mistake they did, by assuming their water filter would keep them safe. "Potable water doesn’t always mean safe drinking water," she said.
"Our advice would be for travelling families to just set yourselves up with a good water filter that kills bacteria.
"Some people have said they just buy cartons of water but when you’re living on the road full-time this just isn’t a cost-effective option for us. We found we were better off just investing in a good quality filter."
Additionally, Bek said to "always know where your closest medical centre or hospital is as sickness and accidents on the road can happen, anytime anywhere."
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