Most mornings, a market sets up along the Saône River. The market hosts an array of fresh produce, and right at one end there is a flower stall. I was quite surprised to see bunches of what appears to be wattle for sale at the flower stall this week.
Wattle at the market
I associate wattle so strongly with Australia; I did not expect to see it here in Lyon, let alone at the end of winter.
The world is getting smaller. Australia’s Tim Tam chocolate biscuits are available in Monoprix, France.
Tim Tam biscuits now found in Monoprix, France
One of my favourite times to be out and about in a large city is the early morning, as the city slowly comes to life, and before the usual mass of people arrive. It is a time of day you share with delivery drivers, cleaners, and those out exercising and walking their dogs.
Part of my weekly routine in Melbourne included early morning runs by the Yarra River. For a large part of the year I got to watch the sun rise during those runs. I am not naturally awake early in the morning, so getting up was a challenge, but those runs were often the highlight of my day.
Yarra River in Melbourne
This morning, I dragged myself out of a cosy bed and braved the cold for a morning run in Lyon. It is not my first run since arriving, but it is the first one I’ve done in the early morning. Similar to Melbourne, my route takes me along the river, this time the Rhône.
As my lungs burned with the cold air, I focussed on the pale pink morning sky and the buildings across the river with purple smoke drifting from their chimneys and the fire orange sun reflected in their windows. There is something about running in a city before the day begins that really makes it feel like yours, and I imagine my new routine here will see many more sunrises by the river.
During our visit to Bathurst we were treated to fresh coffee. This was the first time I had seen green coffee beans roasted and transformed into a cup of coffee.
Our kind hosts put up with my enthusiasm to see, and photograph, their coffee making process in full. The entire roasting process took about fifteen minutes and required surprisingly simple house hold tools to complete.
The green beans are placed in a container ready to be roasted with a hot air gun.
Green coffee beans
These beans took about twelve to fifteen minutes to cook with constant stirring. As they roasted the coffee beans’ husks came off and drifted out of the bowl.
The beans were roasted outside as the husks can settle in the garden without harm and the smoke created does not trigger fire alarms.
Roasting the green beans
The beans are stirred as they roast
Once the beans are roasted, they are cooled. In this case the beans were tumbled from one metal bowl to another.
Cooling the roasted coffee beans
Tumbling the coffee beans to speed up the cooling
The once green coffee beans have now turned brown.
Roasted coffee beans
The cooled roasted beans are ground to a powder using an electric grinder. Previously the grinding had been done with a hand grinder, but unsurprisingly the process was not endearing and an electric replacement was brought in.
The traditional espresso coffee machine
Coffee ready for the espresso machine
After being ground the coffee is put through a coffee machine and into the waiting the cups. The end result tasted fantastic.
The final beautiful cups of coffee
Long haul flights are never enjoyable. The term long haul is apt and descriptive. I have travelled back and forth from Australia to Europe enough times to know that every extra comfort is worthwhile.
Thanks to extensive searching for specific routes and a healthy block of Frequent Flyer points we were able to secure our latest flights on the new Airbus A380 plane along with Qantas Skybed seats.
Qantas A380
This was the first flight I have been able to recline fully on. The seats certainly helped. It will be difficult to return to traditional airline seats.
Qantas Skybeds inside the A380
Inside Business Class of the A380
View across the A380 inside
Qantas Skybed seat controls
Tail mounted camera on the A380