AUSSIE WEEKENDER 6

The days are mostly pleasant here. It was rainy for one or two days in June, but it is no more like that. The temperature is also pretty consistent.
The shops normally closes around 5-5:30, except one or two like Woolworths. On Thursdays, they are open till late, mostly till 9. So, if you can plan your purchases on Thursday, weekends will be all yours!
For this weekend, we left the Saturday for sleeping, and planned for Sunday. Again, it will be 12 by the time it is morning for me J. This week, the rail maintenance was for our area, and Parramatta station was closed. We got a notice in all our post boxes notifying this! This replacement buses till Granville, the next rail junction from where we can carry on with train journey. The day’s plan was to get down at Town Hall and go to the top of Sydney Tower.
We had a downtown’s map to guide us. A 10 mins walk from Town Hall station, we came across some old huge malls on the way. A shopping complex built in early 60s or before -something like a shopping complex looking like our old government office buildings !
Then, was this shopping area with two huge malls on both sides, and from the middle of one of them goes the Tower, going up and up for some 1000 Feet – it is about 4 times our Kutub Minar, New Delhi ; 4 times the height of The monument, London ; only 81 metres less than the Empire State building Structure ! I can swear it is the highest view I have ever got from a man made structure! (I am not sure of the Fire Exit :D ). There are 4 round floors on the top, and an open terrace!
The first two floors are restaurants. You have to take $40 entry ticket (per person) and get in to another set of lifts to reach one of those revolving restaurants. Imagine sitting and eating at some 1000 feet high, and while you eat, the building is rotating slowly, to finish one rotation in an hour ! You will see the whole of Sydney!
This is told to be the highest building in Southern hemisphere. Aussies are lucky that US went in to the northern hemisphere J !
We had our lunch to finish. We settled for a north indian shop in the food court downstairs (Central Plaza), which got settled for around $15 - for rice, a curry, some pakodas and pappadams ! Then we just had a walk around, went to the entry ticket counter by 2:30. The entry to the top floor for view costs $22 per person and this comes along with a hologram show known as ‘Oz-Trek’ when you come down.
A small queue for the checking before entering the lift, for sharp objects or weapons, and here we go. The lift was fast enough to take us to the top in less than one minute, non-stop.
This floor is only for viewing. The middle portion has lifts, souvenir shop, and steps to go to the coffee & bar below. There is this terrace on top, which is open! They charge you $110 to go there, rather take you there, with safety equipments and it is referred as ‘Sky walk’.
Views from all sides were looking good. One part had the view of the sea with the Bondi beach, we had the harbour, and the main parts on the other side! We spend around an hour on the top, didn’t buy the souvenirs as a small 15cm model of the Tower cost $23!
We came down to enjoy a Virtual Reality show, which took us to an air ride above the harbour bridge, and then a lot of places in Australia ! It was a first time experience for me, have heard of such things from Brajesh and others – the shows in Universal Studios. May be it is a similar one?
We had spotted some beautiful meadows and fountains( Hyde Park) from the top, just walked in that direction and spent a peaceful evening there. Walked over to the Harbour, back to the Town Hall station, we had done with the day and back home by 8. One more weekend is over.

Tailpiece :-

Information :-
About the Sydney Tower: (taken from) http://www.sydneyskytour.com.au/tower.html
Construction of Sydney Tower Centrepoint began in late 1970 with the first 52 shops opening in 1972. The office component was completed in 1974 and the final stage of the complex, the Sydney Tower, was opened to the public in August 1981.

Ranked as one of the safest buildings in the world the design has made the tower capable of withstanding earthquakes and extreme wind conditions. 56 cables stabilise the tower, and if the strands of these cables were laid end to end, they would reach from Sydney to Alice Springs, or from Sydney to New Zealand.
The turret has a capacity of 960 persons, and contains two levels of restaurants, a coffee lounge, an Observation Deck, two telecommunication transmission levels and three plant levels.

Three high speed double Deck Lifts take approximately 40 seconds to travel from top to bottom.

The 1504 stairs, constantly monitored by security, provide emergency exit from the tower. Divided into two fire-isolated sets of pressurised stairs, they allow patrons direct access to street level.

The 420 windows of the tower are cleaned by a semi-automatic window-cleaning machine, which recycles and filters 50 litres of water. This machine takes two days to clean all 420 windows.

A 162,000 litre water tank, the tower's primary damping system, one million dollars worth of fire protection equipment and countless sprinklers add to the safety standards which far exceed normal building requirements.