Museum event: Behind the scenes tour
- Audience Type:
- General
- Event Type:
- Special event
- Location:
- Museum-wide
Did you know that less than one per cent of the Australian Museum’s vast collection of natural history specimens and cultural artefacts is on public display?
Now you can go behind the scenes for an up-close and personal tour of Australia’s first museum.
Sneak a peek at an irreplaceable collection of more than 16 million objects and experience incredible treasures – creatures large and small, birds and mammals, ancient fossils and precious minerals, plus incredible cultural artefacts from Indigenous Australia and the Pacific.
Visit working areas normally reserved for staff and researchers, where rare specimens are carefully preserved, and scientists conduct the latest scientific research into life on planet Earth.
Book now for Sydney’s leading scientific and cultural experience.
Highlights
- the Goliath Tarantula – a South American spider that can grow as large as a dinner plate
- 20,000-year-old Diprotodon fossils
- the jaws from a Scalloped Hammerhead Shark
- the Tasmanian Tiger – one of 140 specimens of extinct species in the Museum’s collection
- a rug made from 75 Platypus skins
- the largest collection of Funnel-web Spiders in Australia
- a King Penguin collected by Sir Douglas Mawson’s Antarctic Expedition in 1912–13
- a Torres Strait Island dance mask acquired by the Museum in 1907
- items collected by Captain James Cook and spears in the Pacific Collection
- a giant crab and lobster in the Marine Invertebrates Collection
- ‘painted ladies’ opals in the Gem Vault
- fluorescing parrots
- exotic butterfly and beetle collection
- the taxidermy lab
- opalised fossils 110 million years old
Duration
2 hours
Departs
Daily 11 am
Price
Non-Members $130 per person
Australian Museum Members $110 per person
Group booking of 6 or more people $110 per person
Cost includes
General entry into the Australian Museum
Postcard gift set to take home as a memento of your visit
To purchase your ticket
Phone 02 9320 6009
Bookings are essential and required by 3 pm two working days prior
Booking information
- Bookings essential and required 3 pm two working days prior
- Children 12 years and under not permitted
- Tours limited to maximum of 11 people per tour
- Exclusive group tours for 6 or more people can be arranged on request – ideal for corporate team-building events, clubs, social groups and community groups. Conditions apply.
- Tickets are non-refundable and non-transferable.
Please note
- Tour duration is 2 hours.
- Tours run on schedule. Please arrive 15 minutes prior the start of your tour to allow the tour to start on time.
- For safety reasons, children 12 years and under are not permitted.
- The tour can accommodate a maximum group size of 11 participants.
- Exclusive group tours must be requested when booking and a minimum tour fee applies.
- Wear comfortable clothing and closed in shoes as there is a lot of walking.
- Tour accessibility is limited by narrow passageways and stairs. Please notify us at the time of booking of any special requirements and we will endeavour to accommodate you.
- Toilets are found outside each collection area visited on the tour.
- Certain collection areas contain naphthalene, a pungent chemical used in preserving samples. If you have an allergy to naphthalene or experience respiratory difficulties please inform the tour guide before taking the tour.
- For security reasons, you may not take mobile phones, cameras, videos, other electrical equipment, bags, food or drink on the tour. All items must be cloaked before the tour departs.
- This behind-the-scenes tour does not include public exhibits, but tour guests are free to explore the Museum’s general galleries before or after their tour.
- Elements of the Behind the Scenes Tour and exhibits at the Australian Museum are subject to change without prior notice.
More information
Telephone 02 9320 6009 or email
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Behind The Scenes group in the Pacific Collection View full size
Stuart Humphreys
© Australian Museum
Behind The Scenes in the Entomology Collection View full size
Stuart Humphreys
© Australian Museum
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4 comments
alice1996
10.05 AM, 06 May 2011
THIS IS SOOO COOL!!! IS IT R18?
Yvette
7.07 PM, 07 July 2010
there is no finishing date set at the moment
Belladonna
10.06 AM, 15 June 2010
I live 6 hours away from Sydney so there is very little chance that I'd be able to get there before the Christmas Holidays but I really would love to do this. So is there a finishing date for this?
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