Saturday, 13th February 2016 - H2O Bar

Today I went to an Art and About exhibition which I had been planning to go to way before I departed for Canada and was hoping I didnt miss upon return. It's called the H2O bar. It's a temporary water bar set up in an old reservoir garage site. It's a series of chambers which is closed to the public but open for special events. The chambers lead into a permanent secret garden complete with a water feature. Great to visit all year round as it is semi enclosed and hidden below street level. Great for alone time and it's one of my favourite places to go just outside the city centre or downtown core. Very peaceful.
The H2O bar was set up in the first underground chamber and looks like a laboratory complete with chemists in white lab coats, glass pipettes, conical flasks, beakers and funnels. Each glass laboratory vessel contained water from different regions around Australia and is taged with the location, water type, chemical analysis and ph. We were given a glass test tube or beaker (I really hope these were not from a real testing laboratory and that they have all been sterilised through an autoclave!) to use as a tasting glass and samples of each of the waters were given to us to taste. At first all the water samples tasted the same but then I retasted random samples and my palette told me that some were just awful.  The best water sample I tasted was from The Snowy River full of minerals - really good for you - unlike Perrier more like Evian. Another water sample tasted chlorinated and Sydney water just tasted neutral.  We also tasted a sample of water high in naturally occurring cyanide.  Yep Cyanide but totally safe?! If you dont hear from me again then you know Ive dropped dead from it! There were also water samples from volcanic locations and an area where the water only gets collected when the wind blows in a certain direction only - wierd. The second chamber in the old garage reservoir was set up for a 2 hour workshop between 3 pm and 5 pm for families. This was a free prebooked event . I didnt sign up for it but had a look at what types of activities were involved in the workshop.
I took a photo of each of the water sample analysis. 2 of the water samples were actually commercially available bottled water . I'll be looking in the supermarket for these!
Some of the activities in the workshop involved tasting each water samples and describing them and testing the ph of each water sample.
Overall a great event! Enjoyed it very much.