Day 2 Auckland – Sky Tower

Wednesday, September 12th, 2007 at6:57 pm by traveltripz

Up early and down for breakfast. At $33.00 I did not feel that the breakfast on offer was value for money so my advice is to go out and eat at one of the nearby cafes for breakfast.

Then it was off to the Sky Tower for an impressive 360 degree view of Auckland city.

At 328 metres, the Sky Tower is taller than the Eiffel Tower (324 metres) and the Sydney Tower at 304 metres, so it is pretty impressive, we have however been up the Pearl in Shanghai and it measures an impressive 468 metres making it the 3rd highest tower in the world.

Some facts about the Sky Tower:

It is constructed from 15,000 cubic metres of high strength concrete. The main structure is a shaft measuring 12 metres in diameter made of reinforced concrete.
There are 2,000 tonnes of reinforcing steel in the structure.
The glass floor lifts travel at 18kph meaning that the ride only takes 40 seconds to the main observation level.
A person walking at a normal pace would take about 24 minutes to climb the 1,029 steps to the main observation level. During the 2002 Sky Tower Vertical Challenge the fastest recorded time was 5 mins 7 seconds.
The Tower has been built to withstand winds of up to 200kph and the tower will only sway up to a metre (at the restaurant height of194m) during winds of this strength.
There is a 360 degree view of Auckland and on a clear day you can take in views over 82kms (51 miles) away.

Skytower

There is a Sky jump available from 192 metres. The great thing about the jump is that there is no bouncing around and hanging upside down as with bungy jumping. You fall fast and smooth at approx 85kph for about 14 seconds. At $195 each I felt that there were other things we could do and then when I decided we should do the jump, it rained. So this is a must do for the next visit.

The Sky Tower at night from our hotel room.