Rise to the challenge and experience Sydney’s highest outdoor adventure ~Sydney Tower Eye Skywalk

Today I was invited to Sydney Tower Eye.

I couldn't miss it and I would recommend it to everyone.

I last visited over 10 years or more ago. I first visited in 1982 (I think) as part of a school Home-science excursion to the 360 ° revolving restaurant - at Centrepoint Tower .The restaurant back then set industry benchmarks for revolving restaurants worldwide.

The skyscape has changed so much in 30 yrs, I remember it being so T A L L back then and it was.

First...

4D Cinema Experience - pretty amazing , the kids loved the bubbles

Then we went up the lift to the enclosed Observation Deck -  360 ° views across Sydney. The three high-speed lifts travel at a maximum speed of 420 metres per minute (or seven metres a second) and take just 40 seconds to travel to the top of the tower.

Kids can access the observation deck though only children over 8yrs old can walk the Sydney Skywalk ; the age limit has just been lowered.




The brave donned blue overalls and a safety harness to tether us to the tower - then we ventured outside onto the Skywalk.

A breathalyser was mandatory ....1 2 3 4 5



I touched the gold turret of Sydney Tower (they told us to boast about it) !

Stepping out on the glass-floored platform that extends over the edge of Sydney Tower Eye
where you can see directly below you to the ground...exhilarating.

I'm am not scared of heights so I was cool with it all but still my heart raced with the adrenalin rush.
It was impressive.
Amazing.
Unforgettable.

It's completely stable because the Sydney Tower Eye , like most tall buildings  has a water tank to stabilise it.

The turret is home to a 162,000 water tank which acts as a stabiliser against wind movement and supports the Tower’s fire sprinkler system. If the tank held paint, it would be enough to give the Harbour Bridge two more top coats.

Interestingly, the Skywalk guide asked us what did we think was #1 question -

How many people have jumped from the Tower ?

ONE

Take a look how he managed to do it - remember it was 30 years ago 

Wayne Allwood's legendary jump onto, and then off, Sydney's Centrepoint tower... Feb 22nd 1982.  

The FACT files are extraordinary ....

Sydney Tower height at top of mast – 305 metres (323 metres above Sydney Harbour sea level)
Observation Deck height – 250 metres (268 metres above Sydney Harbour sea level)
Skywalk height – 268 metres (286 metres above Sydney Harbour sea level)
________________________________________________________________

Sydney Tower is the tallest building in Sydney and the 25th tallest inhabitable structure in the world.
It boasts the highest public observation deck in the southern hemisphere, sitting 250m – or a
quarter of a kilometre – above land.

• is more than 4 times as high as the Opera House (67m) and more than double the height of the Harbour Bridge (134 metres).
• is the first place in Sydney to greet the dawn each day and the last place to see the sunset. In fact, visitors on the observation deck can see the sun setting three minutes later than people at ground level. Because of its height, Sydney Tower is usually the first part of Sydney that visitors see when approaching the city by road, air or sea.
• is the same height as the Eiffel Tower.
• is as tall as 60 giraffes – the world’s tallest animal.
• is almost six times as high as Niagara Falls (53m).
• is more than twice as high as Egypt’s Great Pyramid (146m).

The gold turret of Sydney Tower is 25 metres wide but as big as a nine-storey office block.
 

• Visitors to the observation deck can see 55km out to sea compared to someone at Bondi Beach who can see just 5km to the horizon. This means a Tower observer can see a ship approaching Sydney two hours before the person at the beach.

• On a clear day, visitors to the Tower can see landforms up to 85km away, embracing the Blue Mountains to the west, the Central Coast to the north and the Illawarra escarpment to the south.

• When it opened in September 1981, Sydney Tower was the fourth tallest building in the world.Before the tower was built, the maximum allowable height of a Sydney building was 279m to allow for the harbour’s flying boats that were popular before the modern jet era. The maximum allowable height was lifted to 305m with the approval of Sydney Tower. Sydney Tower still sets the height limit for Sydney buildings today.

• The cost to build Sydney Tower was A$36 million (one third the cost of the Sydney Opera House),a huge amount at the time.

• Construction of Sydney Tower began in 1975.When opened in 1981, it was officially called Sydney Tower.

• Sydney Tower’s shaft is secured by 56 cables – each 182 metres long and made up of 235 high tensile wires no wider than a fingernail. The cables form a hyperbolic paraboloid around the Tower’s steel shaft & weigh 700 tonnes.

• If the wires in the Tower’s 56 securing cables were laid end to end they would stretch 2395kilometres. This is the same distance as Melbourne to Cairns, or London to Athens. And it’s further than Auckland to Sydney, Los Angeles to Houston, or Tokyo to Beijing.

• Sydney Tower is designed to withstand winds of up to 172kmh, & even at this wind speed it would only sway to a maximum of 1 metre.

• At 305m, Sydney Tower is the second tallest building in Australia after the new 328m-high Q1 skyscraper on the Gold Coast although Q1’s observation level will be 240m high, compared to Sydney Tower’s 250m-high observation deck.

• Climbing the 1504 steps in the Tower’s emergency staircase would take an average person 50 exhausting minutes. However, the fastest stair climber on record clocked just 6 minutes 52 seconds for the dash to the top as part of Sydney Tower tower’s annual ‘Run Up’ race.

So have you walked the Sydney Skywalk ?

Sydney Tower is open every day 9:00am to 10:30pm (except Christmas Day). SKYWALKS run in all weather conditions, except electrical storms because the Tower attracts 80% of lightening in Sydney.
eeek - 

Today was perfect with just a little wind.

♥

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