The Australian Museum Sydney is on the corner of College and William Streets, pretty much in the heart of the CBD, just across the road from Hyde Park and St Mary’s Cathedral. It is a pleasant walk from Rydges Sydney Central and you should allow at least a few hours to explore. If a few hours aren’t enough, your ticket is valid for the day so you can take a break if needed. It is a terrific outing for the whole family and children under 16 now gain free general admission. General admission for adults is $15, $8 for concessions and Members are free. Some temporary exhibitions may have an admission charge. The museum is open 9:30am to 5:00pm every day except Christmas Day.

For over 180 years the Australian Museum has been at the forefront of scientific research, collection and education. Australia’s first public museum was established in Sydney in 1827 with the aim of procuring ‘many rare and curious specimens of Natural History’. In 1829 William Holmes was appointed the first custodian of the fledgling collection which was in the old post office building in Macquarie Place – the institution was formally named the Australian Museum in 1836.

Today the Australian Museum continues its roles in research and education. From a ‘beautiful Collection of Australian curiosities’, the Museum has grown to an internationally recognised collection of over 18 million cultural and scientific objects. The Museum plays a leading role in research, and at its research station at Lizard Island conducts significant research on coral reef ecology. Through exhibitions and other public programs the museum continues to inform and amaze generations of visitors about the unique flora, fauna and cultures of Australia and the Pacific.

Australia is known world-wide for its dangerous animals. For example, 20 of the world’s 25 most venomous snakes are Australian – and we’ve got funnel-webs and redback spiders, box jellyfish, bluebottles, paralysis ticks, crocodiles, stonefish, sharks, bull ants and bees… lots of things to niggle us but are they really that threatening?

The museum is home to an array of dinosaurs, birds, fishes, mammals, frogs and insects as well as photographic, art and cultural exhibitions from international and Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait collections. There’s a large Natural Science Collection in lots of categories – arachnology (spiders, scorpions, ticks, mites and other eight-legged critters), entomology (insects like flies, cicadas, moths, bugs, cockroaches, fleas and bees), herpetology (reptiles like snakes, lizards, crocodiles, frogs, turtles and tortoises), ichthyology (fishes – there are over 32,500 species!), malacology (the molluscs that sometimes find their way onto a menu – clams, mussels, octopus, squid and snails), mammalogy (the mammals – from rodents to whales to marsupials to monotremes to primates), mineralogy (minerals), petrology (rocks), ornithology (birds – from tiny hummingbirds to huge ostriches), palaeontology (fascinating fossils), vertebrates (animals with backbones) and marine invertebrates (specimens from all the invertebrate groups apart from molluscs, insects and spiders).

Here is a link to the Australian Museum official website for more information on the museum including what’s currently happening.