Images From Southern Hemisphere’s Tallest Tower

At 328 metres (more than a thousand feet) Auckland's Sky Tower is the tallest structure in the Southern Hemisphere. On a clear day it offers views for more than eighty kilometres in every direction.

Some interesting facts about Sky Tower

Sky Tower is the tallest tower in the southern hemisphere.

Sky Tower is 328 metres tall (more than 1,076 feet); that's about 37 buses standing end on end.

Sky Tower is the 12th tallest tower in the world. Taller than the Eiffel Tower in Paris or Sydney's AMP Tower.

Sky Tower weighs 21 million kilos (20,000 tonnes) which is equivalent to 6,000 elephants.

It took two years and nine months to build Sky Tower.

On a clear day you can see approximately 82 kilometres (51 miles) from Sky Tower.

From the Main Observation level you can see as far north as Leigh Peninsula, as far east as Great Barrier Island, as far west as the Waitakere Ranges, and as far south as the Bombay Hills.

Three glass-fronted elevators can take 225 people to the observation levels every fifteen minutes. The elevators travel at 18km/ph (11mph) and the ride takes only forty seconds.

There are 1,267 steps from the base of Sky Tower to Sky Deck. It would take someone twenty-nine minutes to reach Sky Deck walking at 4 km/h (2.5 mph).

During one Sky Tower Vertical Challenge race a contestant ran up over a thousand steps in only 5 minutes and 17 seconds.

Sky Tower has three circular public observation levels - Sky Deck, Main Observation level and Sky Lounge - from each of which you can get a 360-degree view of Auckland.

Skypics - situated in Sky Towers exit gallery - allows you to get a photo image of yourself bungy-jumping or hang-gliding from Sky Tower.

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