Skydeck – todayistheday

Tuesday…finally made it into the city! The weather in the morning was not at all promising, pouring down rain the whole drive, but once in Melbourne the sun was out! It took about half an hour to get there.

Once in the city it was super easy to find the Melbourne Sea Life Aquarium. Parking was just across the street in a parkade that had super steep prices (hint, for 3 hours it would have been $62 but with a voucher we got when we got to the aquarium it ended up being only $11, so well worth it to ask when you get in there). I bought the tickets online before we went in, you save 10% doing it that way. Always after a deal… 😉

I was super excited to go to the aquarium and it did not disappoint. Although we were stuck between two tours…school kids in front and a group of seniors behind us. That did have the benefit of being able to eavesdrop on the guides speeches but the downside of trying to avoid 20 screaming children and a group of slow moving seniors.

One of the highlights was the big aquarium that they had full of predatory fish, we watched a presentation about nurse sharks that was probably about 20 minutes long and super interesting. The tank had huuuuuge rays in it, I’ve never seen them that big. The presenter did keep saying “Don’t be afraid of sharks, they’re actually friendly.” Which I’m not gonna lie, I highly disagree with. If I’m swimming somewhere and I see sharks, you can bet I’m getting the hell out of there.

This guy looked about 7 feet wide! Thank God for thick glass

There were quite a few cool exhibits, including a huge freshwater crocodile, turtles, seahorses and PENGUINS! I am always a little hesitant of visiting places that keep animals in captivity, but this aquarium did really seem to stress good treatment to the animals, breeding to help replenish ones that were endangered and they do have an organization in place for funding for protection of wildlife.

Finally they had a 4-D show, it was based on the guy from Ice Age whose always loosing the nuts. It was a pretty entertaining little 10 minute video, and I do love a good 4-D experience.

After the aquarium we grabbed a quick lunch at a pub across the road then headed over to the Eureka Skydeck. It was only a couple minute drive and is the tallest building in Melbourne. According to the brochure it’s the highest public vantage point in the Southern Hemisphere and the glass on the outside of the top 10 floors are coated in 24 karat gold. It was $20 each to go up to the top and the views were unreal. You get a 360 degree view of the city which I think really helped me get my bearings of where things were.

They also have ‘The Edge‘ where you pay extra and get put in what looked like basically a glass box and hung out over the edge of the building. I did not do that. One of the things I really like was they had little like binocular things pointed at the main sites around the city. There’s also a little outdoor terrace you can walk onto, which surprisingly considering how windy it was down below wasn’t windy at all.

In this one you can see the MCG on the right and then the Flinders Street Station in the bottom left corner. Fun fact I learned while up there, over 110,000 people go through that train station a day!