NZ Day 12 – Wednesday 28th September

Scouting day today to sort out a suitable location for a “drop by meeting point” ie a coffee shop or similar.  Found a suitable spot in Sky City itself so with that sorted out decided to head up the Sky Tower.  At 328 metrres it is the tallest building in Auckland by miles, well by metres to be precise! The glass fronted lifts hurtle up the outside of the tower to the main observation platform which sits at 186 metres above the city. The view over Auckland are magnificent you even look down on the surrounding tower blocks.  The glass plates set into the Observation Platform floor are another matter.  The sign declares “the glass is 38mm thick and is stronger than the concrete floor you are standing on” but it still doesn’t feel right standing on glass several hundred metres above the ground.  The Sky Deck is higher still at 220 metres. At $28 it was quite costly to go up so decided to make the most of it and have a high level lunch – well a sandwich and a ginger beer to be precise.  Some folk walk around the open air platform at 194 metres or even jump off in controlled free fall but I gave those activities a miss. After that it was a question of finding my bearings around Auckland before finding a cafe with internet access to send off some e-mails to set up some meetings. All in all a good day with some fine Auckland spring weather.