No one can really travel back in time, but starting on March 3, visitors to Melbourne Museum can get pretty close.
If you’ve ever wanted to walk among prehistoric plants and megafauna, Gandel Gondwana Garden is the place to go. A new outdoor gallery at Melbourne Museum, the exhibition expands the existing Pauline Gandel Children’s Gallery to create a huge 900 square metre garden of immersive learning covering hundreds of millions of years of Australian natural history.
Named after the ancient supercontinent of Gondwana that Australia descends from (as well as the generous donations of philanthropists John and Pauline Gandel), the garden will take visitors on an expedition through recreations of five different ecosystems throughout history, guided by First People’s knowledge and stories throughout, exploring the complex link between land, language, and culture.
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The garden will invite guests to not just read about, but to explore natural history physically and fully as they encounter prehistoric megafauna, plants, habitats, and ecosystems as if walking through history itself, and touch replicas of the bones, teeth, and claws of ancient animals that once roamed the land they live on.
Intended primarily for children aged six-to-12 and their families, Gandel Gondwana Garden will also incorporate play-based learning in order to make history just a little more fun, including an optional puzzle quest that guests can access on their own devices, leading them to further exploration and learning to be found.
The gallery also adjoins the exhibition Triceratops: Fate of the Dinosaurs— the interactive attraction chronicling the lineage of the dinosaurs and home to Horridus the Triceratops, the most complete dinosaur skeleton in Australia— which opened only last year in 2022 and is suitable for all ages.
Gandel Gondwana Garden will open on March 3 and is included in the general entry ticket for Melbourne Museum. As always, entry is free for children under 16 years old.
Melbourne Museum tickets are available here.
