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January 11th 2007

Published: January 13th 2007

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AdamKent

Melbourne by night...

As viewed from the Rialto Tower, looking out over the Telstra Dome.

Finally I have escaped Western Australia!! After new year I spent a couple of days in Perth before flying on to Melbourne, Victoria. Hopefully I can find some more work here before a brief stop in Sydney and finishing the final legs of my journey to return home...

Caught up with a couple of my farming friends at an ice bar in Melbourne. First time I've come across one of these so I had to give it a go! It is a place called Chill On, situated inside a non-descript building on Russell Street. Inside, the 'Ice Bar' is made from approximately 30 tones of ice! Walls, chairs, tables and drink glasses all made of ice, a three seater ice-couch covered in kangaroo skin, and hand carved ice sculptures. Upon entry to the bar (made of ice too, shelves and all!) you are issued with a ski jacket, gloves and ugg boots!

Believe me, this is entirely neccessary even though you are limited to staying in the bar for only thirty minutes. It doesn't sound like long, but with an air temperature of -11 degrees, thirty minutes was an ample amount of time!! When you go in you receive a

Chill On

Chillin' at the Ice Bar with Ki and Kayo !

complimentary cocktail served in a glass made entirely of ice. You can also get shots out of icey shot-glasses! When you finish your drink, you can smash the tumbler into a big bucket (saves them washing up I suppose!). I'm not sure how it works in such a low temperature, but they have a pumping stereo and a 40” LCD TV to keep you entertained too. The lighting was pretty impressive, shining out of the ceiling, walls and floor sort of fading between red, green, yellow and blue.

After half an hour in there freezing our arses off, we had to move upstairs to warm up with some more drinks and watched movies in the funk bar. A good night out, and I certainly recommend trying an ice bar if you are lucky enough to come across one!!

In a now disturbingly emerging pattern where I climb something tall and look at the view, everywhere I go, I also had to pay a visit to Rialto Tower in Melbourne's CBD. Before going to the top, I entered the 'RialtoVision Theatre' to see the (in their words) "award-winning 20-minute sight and sound extravaganza". In reality, it was twenty minutes

Long way down...

of the cheesiest promotional video I have ever seen, it really should have been billed as a comedy. I'm not sure if it was supposed to be a piss-take of a nineteen-eighties film, but it certainly gave me a chuckle!

Then it was up to the top to take in the view over Melbourne. The Rialto does offer an excellent viewpoint over the city, but there was a lot of haze due to smoke from the bushfires raging around the outside of Melbourne. I suppose I cant really blame the aussies for this slightly impaired view, but it didnt stop me complaining and asking reception to stamp my ticket so I could return at night without having to pay the extortionate entry fee again! ;-)

I had to wait until last entry at 21.30 before darkness had come. The view was excellent at night. There was still the smokey haze, but it doesnt compete with manmade illuminations. Unfortuneately my camera can't really make the most of the night time shots, but I had a go anyway!!

😊 Rialto Tower Quick Facts!* There are 1254 stairs to the Observation Deck.
* The Rialto Tower has a height of 253

Chill On

Drinking cocktails from glasses made of ice, in a bar made of ice, at a frosty -11 degrees!

metres (823 ft) and is the tallest office building in the Southern Hemisphere.
* If a kilogram block was dropped from the roof it would take 7.9 seconds to hit the ground at 250kph.
* It takes approximately 40 seconds to reach Level 55 in the lifts. The lifts travel at 25kph or 7.1 metres per second.

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