Getting some Natural History

This week has been pretty busy as we get everything checked off our to-do list before heading to Thailand on Sunday. On Wednesday we headed to the Natural History Museum as it had been recommended by lots of people. The building itself is very impressive, it is old but in very good condition with some very nice interior spaces.


There was a very large dinosaur exhibition which had some very cool animatronic dinosaurs that looked like they were straight out of Jurassic Park. The information presented throughout the museum was aimed at children and students so if you were interested in more than just the basic facts the museum had very little to offer apart from an impressive collection of bones and stuffed animals.

The very real T-Rex (click to view movie)

A large part of the museum was devoted to geology and natural events such as volcanoes and earthquakes. Compared to Te Papa this section was pretty average. There was an earthquake simulator but it was not as exciting as Te Papas and parts of the displays felt pretty tacky compared to the dinosaur and animal exhibits. It is just a shame the architectural design of Te Papas exhibits is so staggeringly terrible compared to the Natural History Museum.


There are over 300 researchers and tens of thousands of samples at the museum and the current emphasis of development is trying to expose this side to visitors. This is being achieved through some nice looking architectural moves but at the moment this section is still under serious construction (although it will probably end up drawing more people than the dinosaurs).