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'Flying over Berlin' on Europe's Highest Swing

Hotel worker Wendy Sorice swings 120 meters above the rooftops of Berlin. RALF HIRSCHBERGER / AFP/File
Hotel worker Wendy Sorice swings 120 meters above the rooftops of Berlin. RALF HIRSCHBERGER / AFP/File
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'Flying over Berlin' on Europe's Highest Swing

Hotel worker Wendy Sorice swings 120 meters above the rooftops of Berlin. RALF HIRSCHBERGER / AFP/File
Hotel worker Wendy Sorice swings 120 meters above the rooftops of Berlin. RALF HIRSCHBERGER / AFP/File

Pascal Vent let out a nervous laugh as he peered down at the ground from Berlin's newest tourist attraction, a swing on the top of a 40-storey tower block.
Billed as the highest swing in Europe, the contraption on top of a hotel next to Berlin's famous TV tower is a novel way to take in the city -- with a dose of adrenaline thrown in.
Once strapped into a harness, customers are propelled forward so that when they are at the high point of the swing, there is nothing between them and the ground 120 meters (nearly 400 feet) below.
"After the first few swings, you get used to it and you feel free," said Vent, a media worker who wanted to try out the swing for his 36th birthday.
"I came here to feel a bit younger," he said.
The swing, which charges around 20 euros ($22) for five minutes, has attracted more than 100 visitors a day since it opened in June.
Victoria Voigt, a 34-year-old care worker, discovered the attraction via social media.
"It feels a bit like flying," she said.
Wendy Sorice, a 30-year-old hotel worker, described the experience as an "adrenaline rush" and said she could happily have done it for longer than five minutes.
But her boyfriend was not so enthusiastic -- overcome by vertigo, he stayed on the ground to film her instead.
"We wanted to create something simple and easy to access," said Andi Hoefer, managing director of the company that set up the swing, which operates several attractions in Germany.
The company had previously offered base jumping from the top of the building, but it attracted only limited interest.
The swing offers some competition for the 368-meter TV tower, a famous symbol of the former East Germany with sweeping views across Berlin.
"They have sloping windows, but we have a terrace and fresh air," Hoefer said.
And the fact the attraction beats the record for the highest swing in Europe, previously held by a 100-meter swing in Amsterdam? "Pure chance," he said.

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Emperor Penguin Released at Sea 20 Days after Waddling Onto Australian Beach

In this photo released by Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions (DBCA), a male emperor penguin dubbed Gus, is released back into the ocean off the south coast of Western Australia, Wednesday Nov. 20, 2024. (Miles Brotherson/DBCA via AP)
In this photo released by Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions (DBCA), a male emperor penguin dubbed Gus, is released back into the ocean off the south coast of Western Australia, Wednesday Nov. 20, 2024. (Miles Brotherson/DBCA via AP)
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Emperor Penguin Released at Sea 20 Days after Waddling Onto Australian Beach

In this photo released by Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions (DBCA), a male emperor penguin dubbed Gus, is released back into the ocean off the south coast of Western Australia, Wednesday Nov. 20, 2024. (Miles Brotherson/DBCA via AP)
In this photo released by Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions (DBCA), a male emperor penguin dubbed Gus, is released back into the ocean off the south coast of Western Australia, Wednesday Nov. 20, 2024. (Miles Brotherson/DBCA via AP)

The only emperor penguin known to have swum from Antarctica to Australia was released at sea 20 days after he waddled ashore on a popular tourist beach, officials said Friday.
The adult male was found on Nov. 1 on Ocean Beach sand dunes in the town of Denmark in temperate southwest Australia — about 3,500 kilometers north of the icy waters off the Antarctic coast, the Western Australia state government said. He was released from a Parks and Wildlife Service boat on Wednesday, The Associated Press reported.
The boat traveled for several hours from the state’s most southerly city of Albany before the penguin was released into the Southern Ocean, but the government didn't give the distance in its statement.
He had been cared for by registered wildlife caregiver Carol Biddulph, who named him Gus after the first Roman emperor Augustus.
“I really didn’t know whether he was going to make it to begin with because he was so undernourished,” Biddulph said in video recorded before the bird’s release but released by the government on Friday.
“I’ll miss Gus. It’s been an incredible few weeks, something I wouldn’t have missed,” she added.
Biddulph said she had found from caring for other species of lone penguins that mirrors were an important part of their rehabilitation by providing a comforting sense of company.
“He absolutely loves his big mirror and I think that has been crucial in his well-being. They’re social birds and he stands next to the mirror most of the time,” she said.
Gus gained weight in her care, from 21.3 kilograms when he was found to 24.7 kilograms. He stands 1 meter tall. A healthy male emperor penguin can weigh more than 45 kilograms.
The largest penguin species has never been reported in Australia before, University of Western Australia research fellow Belinda Cannell said, though some had reached New Zealand, nearly all of which is further south than Western Australia.
The government said with the Southern Hemisphere summer approaching, it had been time-crucial to return Gus to the ocean where he could thermoregulate.
Emperor penguins have been known to cover up to 1,600 kilometers on foraging journeys that last up to a month, the government said.