Melbourne Skydeck, Docklands and More

This afternoon took me to the Melbourne Skydeck, the Docklands District, and Chinatown. Alright. Yeah, yeah. The afternoon didn’t so much take me there as my feet did. It was a figure of speech. The journey to the Docklands district involved a lot of walking. Was it worth it? Wait and see. But let’s do things in order, shall we? After being reenergized by lunch I headed to the nearby Eureka Tower.

Melbourne Skydeck

You’re probably wondering, “The Eureka Tower? What’s this damned Eureka Tower business? I thought you said you went to the Melbourne Skydeck. Why are you inserting this new thing into the discussion unannounced?”

Damned, you’re impatient, aren’t you? I’ll get to that immediately. Right in the next paragraph, in fact.

The Melbourne Skydeck is on the 88th floor of a building called the Eureka Tower. I’ve seen it referred to as the Eureka Skydeck, but that’s not what the sign on the door says. It’s the Melbourne Skydeck. There. Satisfied? Questions answered? Good. Let me get on with it.

As I said, the Melbourne Skydeck is on the 88th floor. Consequently, needless to say, it has some amazing views through the floor-to-ceiling windows that surround that level. Today was a little hazy, so the views weren’t perfect. But they were amazing nonetheless. I looked down at Melbourne’s other skyscrapers, the river, the ocean, and the scenery behind Melbourne.

You might be wondering why, if it was a little hazy, didn’t I wait for a clearer day to go up? Simple reason. The forecast called for showers starting tonight, followed by rain with intermittent downpours, and continuing rain until after I leave Melbourne. The forecast has been wrong before. But today seemed like the best bet.

In this morning’s post, I said that from what I could tell poking inside the Flinders Street Station, I thought it looked like a Potemkin train station—a very handsome facade, with a small concourse hiding open train tracks. I was right. The view from the Melbourne Skydeck allowed me to look down on the train station. I posted a zoomed-in picture here. See what I mean?

The Skydeck also has a small outdoor area. A sign posted by the entrance says there can be high winds. To get out there, you have to push a button beside the door, but you can’t push it unless the light by the door is green. Pressing it when the light is green automatically opens a sliding glass door. When you step inside, you’re faced with another sliding glass door, but the light on that one is red. It doesn’t turn green until the first door closes. You reverse the process to go back inside.

I assume that’s to keep the allegedly strong winds from blowing in. (The winds were light when I went out.)

The view from the outdoor area is not as good as from inside. You look through what is the equivalent of a less ugly chainlink fence.

Melbourne Skydeck — The Edge

The Melbourne Skydeck sells a few different types of tickets. You can buy a general admission ticket that just gets you to the observation deck. Or you can buy a combination ticket that also gives you access to one, two, or all three of the additional experiences they offer. Two of them are VR activities, one at the ground level and one at the top. I wasn’t interested.

The third was something they call “The Edge.” I don’t know if any of you are familiar with something that the CN Tower in Toronto calls “The Edge Walk.” There, visitors suit up in protective gear and walk tethered around a catwalk on the roof of the observation deck of the CN Tower. I have never done that and I will never do that. Period. Triple exclamation mark. But that’s not what The Edge at the Melbourne Skydeck is.

The CN tower and some other towers I’ve been to have a small section of glass floor in their observation decks that people can walk on. Walking on the glass was free (after paying the general admission price) in the places I’ve been to. I’ve usually intended to do it, but chickened out when I got close to the glass floor. That was the case for me at the CN Tower in Toronto and the Tokyo Skytree. (Neither of those visits appear here. The CN Tower because it’s in my hometown and this is a travel journal, plus it was well before I started this journal. And the Skytree because it was before I started this journal.) My acrophobia got the better of me both times. I just couldn’t do it without risking my heart exploding out of my chest, or so I imagined.

I did overcome that fear once and stepped on the glass floor in the Aukland Sky Tower. I swore I’d never do it again.

The Edge at the Melbourne Skydeck is something like those glass floor experiences, but much, much worse. I’d read about The Edge in my guidebooks, but I also asked the ticket seller at the base of the tower about it. After she explained to me again what it was, I asked her, “If I do this will it be the stupidest thing I’ve ever done in my soon-to-be foreshortened life?”

“Oh, no,” she said. “It’s perfectly safe.”

Um, ok. I bought a combo ticket that included The Edge. When you buy a Melbourne Skydeck ticket that includes The Edge, the ticket seller gives you one of those flashing light, buzzing devices that some restaurants use to tell you when your table is ready. When it goes off, it’s your time to enter The Edge.

On The Edge

So, what is The Edge? It’s a big box. Actually, it’s a big box divided into two roughly cubic boxes large enough to hold a few people each. The walls of the first side are entirely opaque and remain completely opaque. There’s a sign there saying you can’t take any pictures on The Edge. I asked why. “Because we take pictures,” replied the attendant. Not only can you not take any pictures, but they insist you leave your cellphones and cameras in cubby holes in that first section before going into the second section.

The attendant then opens the door to the other side. It’s a frosted glass cube with frosting sufficient such that you can’t see out. During my time in the cube, there were three customers, myself and a couple.

The attendant had the three of us walk into the frosted glass cube and then she closed a door between the two sides, but not before telling us that if we felt too uncomfortable we could knock on the door and she’d let us out. I asked if we could rehearse knocking on the door. She and the couple laughed, mistakenly thinking I was joking.

With the door closed, the box started moving. Grinding gear and other mechanical sound effects played loudly in our cube. Then there was a sound like a clap of thunder. With that, three walls and the floor of frosted glass suddenly went entirely transparent to reveal that we were now standing outside of the usual walls of the building. Looking down gave a view all of the way to the ground, 88 storeys below our feet. It was a spectacular, but terrifying experience that I vow to never do again. Ever.

After a while, there were some rolling thunder sound effects and the frosting flashed on and off repeatedly. It then stayed transparent. The attendant opened the door and explained that her side of the box never went out beyond the edge of the building and served as a counterweight for our side. Bully for her. She said there are also huge cables keeping it from tumbling off the side of the building.

She then asked the couple to step out while she took a picture of me. Then she asked me to step out while she took a picture of the couple. She then handed us each a printed sheet with a QR code we could use to download our photo for free. Or we could pay to get a high-resolution printed copy. I stuck with just the digital photo. I posted it here.

One member of the couple, I was too traumatized to remember if it was the man or the woman, said to the attendant, “I assume you shut The Edge down in high winds.”

“No,” she replied, The building sways a little, but we can still operate The Edge. The problem is the building’s elevators. If the building sways too much they shut down and we have to wait until they run again”

Having received that information, I quickly left the Eureka Building and thanked the god I don’t believe in for sparing my life.

I think I deserve an Order of Canada for risking my life to represent Canada out on The Edge. At the very least, the Governor General should invest me as a Member of the Order of Canada, but I honestly think I deserve the highest rank, the Companion of the Order of Canada, for my daring feat.

Docklands District

The Docklands District is about a 30-minute walk from the Eureka Building. The Eureka Building’s Melbourne Skydeck and The Edge provided not-to-be-missed views, but now that I hadn’t missed them I was eager to get away from the horror, the horror. A 30-minute walk was probably sufficient to get me out of the devastation zone if a strong gust came up and the building crashed rather after swaying.

Much of the walk to the Docklands District was beside the Yarra River. There are a few sculptures along the way. One section of the walk is a broad, tree-lined boulevard with classy grey paving stones.

A row of restaurants line the side of the boulevard away from the river. I’m not certain, but I think those restaurants are part of a very large complex that, according to the commentary from the cruise this morning, contains a casino, a hotel, shops, and restaurants.

Another part of the walk was along a pleasantly simple boardwalk.

There was one short part of the walk that went away from the river through a rather barren area. But I think some of it is getting ready for redevelopment.

One of the guidebooks I use recommended the Docklands District (a redeveloped dockyard area) primarily for its modern architecture, but also for its beautiful harbour, marina, and public areas. One of those public areas contains a Ferris wheel that wasn’t operating when I was there.

The harbour and marina are quite attractive. And that vantage point provides good views of buildings across the harbour and the downtown farther away.

As for the modern architecture, in my opinion, meh. The buildings are mostly a mix of mid-rise and high-rise. Some have interesting shapes, but for my tastes, considerably less than dazzlingly gorgeous. I didn’t think any were ugly. But few are beautiful. But, again, that’s a subjective judgment.

Most of the buildings are residential, but some appear to be offices.

The Docklands District has a small shopping mall. An angled glass roof cantilevers over its walkway so there’s an opening above the row of stores on one side. But the roof overhangs them enough that it probably provides complete rain protection. the ends of the mall are open.

The mall had few customers on this Thursday afternoon. Probably not surprising on a workday. However, I think that may be a regular condition. A number of the stores were vacant.

Leaving the Docklands District, I made the 40-minute or so walk back to my hotel, first walking through Chinatown, which is practically next door to my street.

Chinatown

I didn’t count, but as best as I could tell from my walkabout, I think Melbourne’s Chinatown is about five or six blocks of a single straight street, Little Bourke Street. It is lined mostly with Chinese stores and restaurants. Some Chinese establishments also spill over a bit onto the cross streets.

On either side of the cross-streets, a simple decorative gate reaches over the roadway of Little Bourke Street to reintroduce Chinatown each time.