Melbourne from the 88th floor: The Eureka Tower

Hello again Jarrod and of course, a hearty welcome to any other readers! So, fresh off a win last week with a positive verdict from you on The Hangman’s Tour of the Old Melbourne Gaol, I’m feeling quietly confident that I can make it two in a row with my visit to The Eureka Tower. Particularly given you said that you’d rather go there than The Melbourne Star.

This was actually my second visit to the Tower, the first being back in 2011 when I was hosting Imogen, a lovely English lass whom I met traveling through India. On that occasion, I got horrifically lost trying to find the Eureka Tower. Someone who doesn’t know me well might ask “how does anyone get lost trying to find the tallest building in Melbourne?? All you’d need to do is look UP and you’d locate it.”  Valid points. But you wouldn’t ask that Jarrod, because you’re all too aware of my spectacular navigational impairment. It’s a running joke in our family that all you need to do is ‘turn me round and I’m lost’ and sadly that’s barely an exaggeration. Many a birthday party game of pin the tail on the donkey ended with me in tears in the hallway, tearing off the blindfold because I was certain I had somehow blundered into New South Wales…

Anyway this time I made my way to The Tower quite easily. Cross the Southbank footbridge and it’s more or less right in front of you. (Interesting bit of trivia: the word Eureka is derived from an Ancient Greek word that roughly translates as “I found it!” Given we’re talking about a structure that’s 297 metres high, finding it doesn’t really seem cause for exclamation..?)

Now, I’m not sure what the giant gold bees on the side of the building are for. But I’m sure as hell not using ‘a bee’s dick’ to denote a supposedly miniscule unit of measurement any more.

From Ground Zero

The lift up is fast and I’m happy to report that my ears popped FOUR times on the way up, so it checks out–you really are going up 88 floors in under a minute. It’s not an elaborate ruse whereby you’re only taken up four or five stories to admire a diorama made of model train parts.

The views from 88 stories up are pretty damn spectacular. But that’s a given, really, isn’t it? Everything looks nice from way, way, way up high. Even the parts of Melbourne that I hate–like predatory, aggressive King Street–seem prettier once they’re reduced to mere twinkling lights in the distance.

The beautiful CBD

High on the hill, looking over the bridge, see the MCG…

They also have some strange telescopey things which zoom in on certain attractions. Presumably their primary purpose is to show you what said attraction would look like if you were on hallucinogenic drugs?

Trippy close up of the MCG

Having paid your entrance fee, you can spend as long as you want up there.  I think that’s one of the big advantages the Eureka Tower has over the Melbourne Star, which is fixed at 30mins.

I’m going on record as saying if you’re planning to visit, hands down the best time to go is sunset/dusk on a clear day. It’s pretty during the day, but on the evening I went, it was as though weather conditions said “oh, this is for the blog? RIGHT! DIAL THE SEXY UP TO FACTOR INFINITY!!!”  Case(s) in point–all absolutely unadulterated/not tinkered with/not instagram filtered:

Lovely, but wait, this is only the beginning of the montage!

The Yarra doing its best impersonation of molten lava

And then things get all pink. Note the tiny Melbourne Star in the distance…

The other selling point at The Eureka Tower is the Edge Experience. I’m not sure if you’d be up for it  Jarrod, but for an extra fee you can get in a glass cube that moves out from the side of the building, suspending you 297 metres above the ground.

Just chilling out and admiring the 88 storey drop

Not sure if you know this, but you can’t take your own camera or mobile phone in there, so you’re more or less bound to buy the official photograph that they take of you *shakes fist in impotent anger at having to shell out another $15*. (Their rationale seems to be that they don’t want anything that could drop and break the glass. Given the glass is meant to support ten fully grown humans, I’m not reeeeallly buying that my little iphone 4s striking it could spell the end for all concerned, but what do I know, right?)

So in the name of blogging, of course I did the Edge Experience. I made sure to wear jeans especially for this purpose. Not going to reward any particularly dedicated, telescope-bearing upskirters down on the footpath below. Here I am looking very zen indeed, almost 300m above the ground…

Once the sun goes down it’s a little tricky to get great pictures as you get a lot of reflection off the windows inside, but there’s an outside vantage point that delivers, albeit through a safety screen.

Twinkling lights as far as the eye can see

My recommendation would be to round off the visit with a drink at Ponyfish Island, this cute little bar just under the Southbank Footbridge:

Having been up high, time to get subterranean

I’ll be back again next week, this time doing a close up meerkat encounter at The Melbourne Zoo. In the meantime, (and I feel like it’s almost a given),  The Eureka Tower–Jarrod, would you go there?