Archives: Discovery Centres

The North Coast Regional Botanic Garden in Coffs Harbour opened in 1988 and incorporates several very different garden styles, from mangroves to a rainforest, Japanese garden, a greenhouse and a sensory garden spread over 20 hectares. There are five kilometres of paths through the garden, and guided walks are available each month. There are also…

The Whyalla Steelworks produces about 1.2 million tonnes of steel per year, using iron ore from the nearby Middleback Range. This 90 minute guided tour of the 1000 hectare site will take you past the coke ovens, blast furnace, rolling mills and casting plant. All participants must remain in the vehicle for the duration of…

The Bowali Visitor Centre in Kakadu National Park features exhibits about landscape and wildlife of the Alligator River system. Kakadu stretches south almost 200 km from the mouth of the river and is 100 km wide. The park is home to thousands of species of plants and hundreds of species of birds, reptiles, mammals and insects. You…

The Darwin Aviation Museum is operated by the Aviation Historical Society of the NT. The Museum is on the Stuart Highway and it backs onto the Darwin Airport aerodrome and RAAF base. The Museum opened in its current large purpose-built hanger in 1990. The collection includes a Boeing B-52G Stratofortress, a Cobra AH-1G attack helicopter,…

The Qantas Founders Museum is located on the apron of Longreach Airport, and incorporates the historic Qantas hanger, a modern museum building and the aircraft collection. The Museum has a collection of historical artefacts and displays, as well as the spectacular collection of aircraft including an ex-Qantas Boeing 747-200, Qantas’ first Boeing 707-100, and ex-Qantas…

The Tweed Regional Museum showcases the natural and social history of the Tweed area. Permanent displays include Land | Life | Culture, which shares unique cultural, biological, and geological stories that shape life in the Tweed Valley. The exhibition introduces the extraordinary richness of this environment and of life in the Tweed, including a touchscreen…

The Central Coast Marine Discovery Centre is volunteer run and is supported by the University of Newcstle Central Coast campus and the local council. The Centre has exhibits as well as live creatures on display, including seahorses, urchins, and an octopus. There are also have programs including occassional talks by researchers, movies, fish feeding, snorkelling…

Capricorn Caves is Queensland’s oldest tourist attraction, opening to visitors in the early 1880s. The caves are etched out of limestone formed from deposits made by a coral reef 390 million years ago. Cathedral Cave is well lit with easy walking pathways. Wheelchair accessible tours are available. Guided tours of the cave highlight the geological…

From 1964 – 1975 Carnarvon hosted a NASA tracking station 10 km south of town that played an important role in communications and telemetry relay for NASA’s Gemini, Apollo and Skylab missions. The Western Australian coast is almost at the antipode from the launch site at Cape Canaveral in Florida. This made it ideal to…

Mount Burnett Observatory is an astronomical observatory in the Dandenong Ranges, east of Melbourne. Since 2011, it has been managed by MBO Inc., a volunteer based astronomical association dedicated to preserving the observatory and encouraging astronomy and science in the Dandenong Ranges and beyond. The Observatory offers a wide range of member activities from astronomy…