Day 242 - ‘Tallest Office Block in the Southern Hemisphere’

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We took Melbourne’s pretty impressive public transport into the city, and were completely surprised by what we saw. Melbourne is just like Sydney, not the clearly inferior little sister that we and most of the rest of the world think it is. Helped by the sunshine, we left with a very positive impression of the place and wished galore that we could work out a way of staying here until the Grand Prix in a couple of weeks’ time. We went up to the observation deck of the ‘tallest office block in the southern hemisphere’, and were rather taken aback by the view of the clearly taller office block almost next door. Either it’s only recently lost its title and been slow to adjust the signs, or (more likely) it’s another example of semantics at work in the world of tall ‘structures’, and the other one doesn’t quite qualify as being an ‘office block’. There’s not much room for manoeuvre with the ‘taller’ and ‘southern hemisphere’ parts. Still, it’s an official member of the ‘World Federation of Great Towers’, which means Ed further extends his lead over Ben in viewing them all, and we haven’t even reached Asia yet.

The view itself was impressive and revealed a few interesting things: preparations for the Grand Prix, the enormous Telstra Dome, the MCG (Melbourne Cricket Ground). And an insight into why Australia produces good tennis players, with an aerial view of countless tennis courts on top of buildings where other countries just have air-conditioning units.

We wandered around the town and visited Batman Park, but poor old Gemma felt dreadful from being covered in insect bites. We ended up heading ‘home’ and sitting in the van, which as it turned out might well have been the worst place for us. Ed finished the day by sinking to a new low in terms of health and fitness by rolling back the years (at least 5) with a large doner kebab for dinner, rather pointlessly washed down with a Diet Coke. And very nice it was too.

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Comments

[ben humphrey]

i don't think so ed.
Either retract that statement or I will fill your blog with a list of towers I have been up and you haven't. I'll start with the World Trades, beat that.