Seeing Down Under from Above
Dec. 27th, 2023 04:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
canyonwalkerAustralia Travelog #9
The Sydney Tower Eye - Mon, 25 Dec 2023, 1pm
The Sydney Tower Eye has been present in almost every view of the downtown skyline. In fact it was the first piece of the skyline we noticed when we arrived downtown and thought, "Okay, that looks... weird." So why not visit it? As the skies remained clear early this afternoon it seemed like a good time to see Down Under from above.
The Sydney Tower Eye reminds me, structurally and in gaudiness factor, of the Seattle Space Needle and Toronto's CN Tower.
Apparently I'm not the only one to note the gaudiness factor as locals variously call the Tower Eye the AMP Tower, the Flower Tower, the Glower Tower, and the Big Poke.
The tower stands 309 meters (1,014 feet) tall. Part of that height is the antenna and lightning rod on top. The highest publicly accessible floor is the observation deck, on the 4th level of the clump at the top of the stem. It's at 250 meters (820 feet) above ground level. That's still higher than the top of any other building in Sydney, as you'll see in my photos below.
For people interested in records, BTW, the Tower Eye isn't the tallest tower around. It's not even the tallest in the Southern Hemisphere. The Sky Tower in Aukland, NZ surpasses it with a total height of 328 meters. Roughly a year ago the Autograph Tower in Jakarta, Indonesia, topped both with a height of 382.9 meters. And that's not counting the many taller structures in Northern Hemisphere cities. Plus there are all the structures that are buildings, not towers, that are really tall. (The architectural distinction is that a tower is designed for regular public access but not living space or offices.) Like the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, which tops out at 829.8 meters.
Anyway, on to more pictures!
The view north across Sydney shows most of the city's other tall buildings. In the middle distance you can see the Harbor Bridge spanning the harbor. Slightly to its right are the white canopies of the Sydney Opera House.
Looking south there are a few tall buildings though not as many as to the north. One interesting thing about this view is that you can see the Hilton hotel where we're staying. It's in the foreground, just below the center of the picture. It's the gray building with the blue logo at its upper right area. And on the building's eastern face you can see the window of the room we're in. No, I'm not going to count how many windows up/down/over it is. This version of the photo is not high-res enough for that!
The Sydney Tower Eye - Mon, 25 Dec 2023, 1pm
The Sydney Tower Eye has been present in almost every view of the downtown skyline. In fact it was the first piece of the skyline we noticed when we arrived downtown and thought, "Okay, that looks... weird." So why not visit it? As the skies remained clear early this afternoon it seemed like a good time to see Down Under from above.
The Sydney Tower Eye reminds me, structurally and in gaudiness factor, of the Seattle Space Needle and Toronto's CN Tower.Apparently I'm not the only one to note the gaudiness factor as locals variously call the Tower Eye the AMP Tower, the Flower Tower, the Glower Tower, and the Big Poke.
The tower stands 309 meters (1,014 feet) tall. Part of that height is the antenna and lightning rod on top. The highest publicly accessible floor is the observation deck, on the 4th level of the clump at the top of the stem. It's at 250 meters (820 feet) above ground level. That's still higher than the top of any other building in Sydney, as you'll see in my photos below.
For people interested in records, BTW, the Tower Eye isn't the tallest tower around. It's not even the tallest in the Southern Hemisphere. The Sky Tower in Aukland, NZ surpasses it with a total height of 328 meters. Roughly a year ago the Autograph Tower in Jakarta, Indonesia, topped both with a height of 382.9 meters. And that's not counting the many taller structures in Northern Hemisphere cities. Plus there are all the structures that are buildings, not towers, that are really tall. (The architectural distinction is that a tower is designed for regular public access but not living space or offices.) Like the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, which tops out at 829.8 meters.
Anyway, on to more pictures!
The view north across Sydney shows most of the city's other tall buildings. In the middle distance you can see the Harbor Bridge spanning the harbor. Slightly to its right are the white canopies of the Sydney Opera House.
Looking south there are a few tall buildings though not as many as to the north. One interesting thing about this view is that you can see the Hilton hotel where we're staying. It's in the foreground, just below the center of the picture. It's the gray building with the blue logo at its upper right area. And on the building's eastern face you can see the window of the room we're in. No, I'm not going to count how many windows up/down/over it is. This version of the photo is not high-res enough for that!
