Young Reporter: Up at the O2: The Climb of your Life - Kathryn T, TGS.

With a diameter of 365m to represent the days in a year, the O2 is instantly recognisable from across London, with its twelve yellow pillars stretching a hundred metres up into the air. It is also very much a venue of mixed fortunes, from the drama of its opening for the millennium, the foiling of the Millennium Dome diamond heist, and then its reinvention in 2005 to become the O2, the indoor venue with the second-highest seating capacity of any in the United Kingdom. Anyone who has been inside the arena will know the immense size of it, and for those who haven’t, it’s really, really, big. However, from the viewing platform at the Dome’s peak, you can see large swathes of London, from Canary Wharf to The ArcelorMittal Orbit in Olympic Park, not to mention getting to see the Thames from a completely new viewpoint, but whichever way you turn you can also see the Dome beneath the blue walkway, almost  as if you are hovering over a giant parachute.

When it was first built, the Millennium Dome (as it was then known) was not an instant success, and was largely reported as a failure by the press, owing to mistakes with the ticketing for the night of the millennium, and a subsequent ‘lack’ of visitors - although the numbers fell short of the ten million predicted, it was still the most visited tourist attraction during 2000. However, during the summer of 2000, it was the backdrop to the foiling of the Millennium Dome diamond heist, which put it back onto the long road to popularity. The heist was an attempt to steal the Millennium Jewels, carried out by the same gang who had tried to steal over ten million pounds from a security van in South London. The resulting police operation, code-named Magician, involved detailed intelligence gathering and planning to ensure the capture of the gang. Having predicted the day of the raid using the times of the Thames’ tide, the police officers disguised themselves as workers at the dome, where they could wait until the robbers reached the (decoy) diamonds before effectively closing off the vault, ensuring that none of the thieves could escape.

I spoke to several people who had walked over the dome with us, all whom shared the same feelings of exhilaration. “It’s quite surreal,” said one of them, “to think that there are so many people in the O2 just doing their own thing, shopping, eating in restaurants, watching films - and you’ve just climbed up onto the roof and seen most of London.” It certainly is more of a climb than a gentle meander, with slopes of up to 30° on the way down. But the guides are faultless in their dedication to safety, ensuring that everyone’s harnesses were correctly attached and they were comfortable with the best way to climb, meaning that it was achievable for all - so much so that the oldest person ever to have climbed over the Dome celebrated their hundredth birthday at its peak! Fletcher (aged 12), who volunteered to lead our group over the top, said it was “Amazing, and the best thing I’ve ever done.” The attraction doesn’t appear to wear off though - our guide, Karl Wilson, reckons he’s climbed the dome nearly a thousand times and he still loves it. “My favourite time to climb is definitely the twilight climb when it's all dark, because London at night is absolutely amazing. If you catch a good sunset as well you can't beat it.” He’s also seen his fair share of celebrities, as he told me; “I'm a bit of a metalhead, and we managed to take ‘Bullet for my Valentine’ up and over the O2 because they’re playing here next year, which 14 year old me was just like ‘Wow. That's pretty cool.’”

If you fancy walking over a major music venue, and returning down to solid ground following the path of Pierce Brosnan’s epic slide in The World is Not Enough, climbing over the Dome is an amazing experience, whether you’ve been inside many times or only seen it from afar, and I’d definitely recommend it to anyone who’s looking to discover something a little bit different in London!