> Hang on, you seem to have this upside-down - "hard" means
> there *is* a lot of calcium in the water:

Fishtoo Moriarty, you're right. I always thought it was the other
way around. I suppose I associated chalk with soft and granite
with hard

> I seem to remember that when I visited NZ the water was
> generally softer than here - at least in Dunedin

It would be in Auckland, mostly volcanic, plenty of manganese
and iron - via iron sand and other ejecta ISTR, a long time since
I did water quality at uni, not a lot of chalky soil in NZ generally.
There's sandstone down south (actually Dunedin way)

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