I’m a huge fan of visiting museums at every city I visit. However, I mean it when I say that none, not even the ones in Singapore, has impressed me as much as Melbourne Museum has.

With tickets costing around SGD 10 per person, there is so much to learn and view at this museum that it took us one whole day to view most of the exhibits. And we were still not done by the time it was about to close!

Read on to find out what are some must check-out exhibits in Melbourne Museum! I also find it helpful to plan beforehand what you definitely want to view, because there’s no way you’ll be able to finish everything in a day.

Mini Mega Model Museum

The Mini Mega Model Museum is hands-down my personal favourite exhibit at Melbourne Museum.

This exhibit in Melbourne Museum had more than 300 astounding models from MMMM’s own collection: zoomed-in, miniature, life-sized and everything in between.

I enjoy making miniatures, which is partly why I was really looking forward to this exhibition.

But I think I mostly enjoyed the Mini Mega Model Museum because all the exhibit write-ups come with this quirky sense of humour:

This miniature dollhouse was large in scale, but the miniatures inside were so intricate and well-made!

I really enjoy their write-ups because it’s so refreshing. Imagine a museum exhibit admitting that they had no idea why it was made!

They also featured more ‘typical’ models of things like cell structures, but certainly made a lot more interesting:

I won’t put too many photos of the models here even though my phone is flooded with them, to help keep the suspense of your trip!

I’m not sure if this Mini Megal Model Museum is just a temporary pop-up though, so visit it while it’s still on!

Forest Gallery

I didn’t manage to snap photos of the whole gallery but I was awed by how wonderfully immersive the museum made it. They designed it such that you feel like you’re truly walking through a forest, complete with sounds of nature.

And then you have these live exhibits that you can get real up close to:

And birds that literally FLEW around everywhere in an open space!

These parrots (or parakeets?) invited a lot of excited squeals from schoolchildren who were on a field trip at the museum. It was as though they were at the zoo! Definitely worth bringing your little ones here.

The Melbourne Story

The Melbourne Story displays icons of the city’s past and present. From the glorious gold rush era to darker tales of mental asylums, poverty, and crime, there’s so much of Melbourne’s history to absorb here that you’ll be left wanting to know even more.

One interesting tidbit you can glean from here is the fact that Melbourne was once home to one of the biggest bookstores in the world: Cole’s Book Arcade!

The new Cole’s Book Arcade was enormous, and Cole claimed it held two million volumes – certainly the largest bookshop in the world at the time. The atmosphere was more like that of a carnival than the quiet, staid atmosphere of a bookshop, and it was so popular police were required to manage the crowds that flocked to it. At times a token was required to enter the arcade, to control crowds.

TimeOut

While they didn’t recreate the whole bookstore (of course not), you can still see bits and pieces of the original store here!

Dynamic Earth

Other than history exhibits, Melbourne Museum also hosts hundreds of specimens in their geological collections.

Here, you’ll see rare and beautiful minerals, giant crystals, uncut diamonds and gold nuggets. Of course, you’ll also get to understand the conditions under which they formed. Some of them even glow in the dark! 

Now if you think viewing rocks and crystals are boring, not to fret. You get your fair share of interactive displays too!

I deeply appreciate how geography, which is potentially boring and dry, can actually be so interesting. Even if you’re not a geography enthusiast, you’ll definitely admire the specimens and pick up a few interesting nuggets of knowledge here.

Bugs Alive!

I’m no fan of bugs (seriously). But this exhibit was what really sealed Melbourne Museum as the BEST one I’ve ever visited.

Typical bug exhibitions will show the different types of insects, their ecosystems, blah blah. However, Melbourne Museum goes the extra mile by showing how insects affect their own exhibits!

I’ve yet to see a museum that does this:

Of course, not all insects are unwelcome visitors at the museum.

Melbourne Museum makes use of beetles to clean (i.e. eat) the flesh off specimens to that they can display the bones. And they actually put the whole process on display for visitors to watch:

This is exactly the kind of exhibition I would have loved as a kid. I still love this as an adult.

Other exhibits worth checking out

First Peoples: an exhibition celebrating the history, culture, achievements and survival of Victoria’s Aboriginal people. I didn’t take many photos here but I was very immersed in the storytelling format of this exhibition. Highly recommended for visitors who want a deeper understanding of Aboriginal Victoria.

Rainbow Threads: diversity of styles and stories that live within Museums Victoria’s clothing and textile collections with a series of displays of LGBTQIA+ collection material

Pauline Gandel Children’s Gallery

If you have children, I can’t recommend enough to bring them to the Children’s Gallery in Melbourne Museum. here, young children can excavate fossils in the dinosaur dig, check out the discovery garden, explore plants and stories, and gaze at specially selected museum objects. There is also a ‘camouflage disco’ where children will turn into spotty and stripy disco dancing animals.

I hope you enjoy your day out at the Melbourne Museum as much as I did! Let me know if you manage viewing everything within a day!

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DIRECTIONS

Address: 11 Nicholson St, Carlton VIC 3053, Australia

Opening Hours: 9am – 5pm daily

You can get Melbourne Museum entry tickets here via Klook.

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