When I was about this age, maybe a little younger. I used to ride my bike up to the Otago Museum and padlock it to the lamppost outside and then walk up to the bus stop and go to school- and that meant that on the way home I had to go to the Museum again. That was my bliss.
Often times I would stop by the University Bookshop- quite possibly the best Bookshop in New Zealand. Spend some time holed up in their kids section adding to the extensive list of books I wanted to try or buy. Or if I was lucky and had some cash I would be making a painstaking decision as to which I was going to buy.
If it was December I would call into the little Church next door and gaze upon the super sweet Nativity scene they had in their front lobby.
Then onto the museum. Everyday. For at least half an hour. At least.
It looks a little bit different now than it did back then and it's gone all modern with it's Museum gift shop, butterfly house, cafe and kids science place. But it's still at it's very core essence My Musuem.
Look there's still even a bike parked out the front.
The feeling I get about this place is practically indescribable for me. The closest I can get is to imagine a Museum sized treasure chest that is just FULL of the most amazing stuff and you have access to practically all of it.
I have had my photo in the newspaper twice in the museum- just by virtue of being in the right place at the right time.
I have competed in Science Fairs at the Museum.
They had a Tuatara and I got to feed it and touch it.
They had a School holiday programme and I got to do it for free- because I was used as an official tested in the weeks leading up to the holidays to make sure that the activities they had planned were going to work.
I have received a full traditional Maori welcome onto the Marae at the museum when we went there for a school visit.
And I have been part of giving one when the Te Maori Exhibition opened there as well.
I have been behind the scenes to the stacks of stuff they have 'off display' where the public seldom get to go - both with the education officer and with John Darby- who was their bird guy when I hung there.
I have been behind the scenes when they were making new exhibits.
And I knew practically every little corner of the displays to the point where I could have been a tour guide.
I LOVE this place with all my heart.
Love it.
It feels to me like the movie 'Night at the museum' only it's daytime and it real!
I knew all 11 penguins in the penguin display.
I know the feel of the timber on the stand for the timber Dolphin that all the little kids like to try and slide on- because its so cool.
I could stare for hours into the display of the deepest darkest ocean.
Or peep through the portholes into the live fish tanks with the tiny Neons darting around.
I can still hear the sound that the bells made in the Ship Hall when I rang them.
I remember the tip leg bone that was visible on the real Egyptian Mummy that they have.
I can still feel the delight as I threw back the dusty covers on the cases that housed their vast insect collection- and I pawed over that butterfly collection for hours- they were amazing.
I LOVE this place with all my heart.
Love it.
I love it.
This photo was taken on a school trip that's my friend Darlene Fallowfield on the right. The lady is the daytime lady- not my person. But Norman (left) and Neville- they're my guys. The afternoon guys. As good a friend as you can get when you're a lone 8 year old and they're grown up guys busy doing their job. I used to get to hold the counter they used to count the visitors to the museum. And sometimes I'd get to show visitors to a the offices or some other spot if they were at the Museum on official business.
This stuff makes me so happy. History, stories, peoples lives, culture, geography, far away places, travel, change and constancy.
The ship hall with it's massive Whale Skeleton (I bet that was a coup when the museum scored it) and all the tiny replicas of everything from junks, to early sailing ships and modern day war boats all painstakingly made piece by piece and then accurately painted to be exact copies of their full size counterparts. The flags, bells, life bouys and the old school diving suit with it's spooky manikin diver.
Look at that architecture!! This was the natural history hall. Insects, birds and animals of all kinds. Stuffed and standing on some sort of fake branch, or in a nest of straw, or pinned to a board with their details recorded in somebody's amazing script sometime long ago. Do you think they knew when they did it- that it'd still be around so many years later? Do you think they imagined how many faces would pass by, maybe making a few cursory glances at the names of the prettier or more spectacular insects?
They closed this room for a long time I was devastated beyond the front desk this was my favourite place to be. Up stairs, around corners, and in a small hidden away door, at the very top of the museum. With the sunlight streaming in through the skylights or more likely the rain pounding against the glass. The room was almost silent by virtue of it's position away from everything else. There were no bells or recorded messages, no tribal music piped in, no children's voices. This room was always warm- I think the warmth of the timber radiated into the space. It was most likely to be empty and so I got to be alone- with all my friends studying names and faces. Looking around as I pleased or just sitting sometimes and breathing and soaking it all in.
I LOVE this place with all my heart.
Love it.
This is the little guy who got me behind the scenes the most at the museum. The Yellow Eyed Penguin.
I read 'Take the Long Path' By Joan de Hamel and developed a life long love of penguins and the yellow-eyed penguin (an Otago local) in particular. That the book was set in my own 'backyard'- the Otago Peninsular was mind blowing to me- there weren't many (any?) books I was reading at that time that allowed me the opportunity to travel in real life to the place that was so vivid in my imagination! Any chance we had an opportunity to choose our course of study at school I chose Penguins. And as a result of that and my relationship with the Otago Musuem I met John Darby. He is one of the worlds foremost experts on the Yellow Eyed Penguin. When we met I believe he was working for the University of Otago. His office was in the museum and he ended up being the Assistant director of the Museum before he retired.
It was John who took me to Cape Saunders on the Otago Peninsular and over private farmland to little Papanui beach where I saw my first ever real live Yellow Eyed Penguin. One of the super coolest experiences of my young life. John was a quiet and conservative guy but he spent a lot of time talking to me about Penguins and gave me a book and a beautiful photo of a Yellow Eyed Penguin which he had taken himself.
As an aside I think it was Neville who told me that the reason John had a glass eye was because an Emperor Penguin had pecked it out when he was doing a study in Antarctica. It only just occurs to me now that he may have been having me on. I hope not though- it's a cool story. :-)
I feel so full and grateful to have had these amazing experiences and known all these people and seen all things all because I wasn't allowed to bike down Dunedin's one way street system. :-)
The Otago Museum- a Natural History museum wasn't the only museum in my life- there was also this baby. Look at her in her early years. This is the Burnside Building designed by John Burnside. The home to the Otago Settlers Museum. (In my day it was called the Early Settlers Museum)
Wikipedia says it best: "One of New Zealand’s most significant social history museums,
established in 1898, recording the past lives and times of the people
and communities of the Otago region. Founded to mark the 50th
anniversary of the settling of Dunedin."
How much foresight did our early European settlers have to set up a Social History museum in 1898!!
This above is how it looked when I knew it.
And then it got extended into here. The old Dunedin Railways Bus Station- one of the most beautiful displays of Art Deco architecture that you can find!!
And now it even has this little annex added to make it look all modern and spiffy.
This was a museum you had to pay to get into and it was further from home along some busy roads so I'm not as close to it as the Otago Museum. But for two super awesome years after saving all my pennies I got a Friends of the Settlers Museum Membership entitling me to free entry.
And enter I did as many times on my weekends and holidays as I could. So of course it got to the point that they knew my name and I knew theirs. Including Elizabeth Hind who eventually because the director and was super lovely person.
Once again as a friend of the museum I got to get behind the scenes and do some awesome stuff. I think when they invented the friends programme they had grown-up volunteers in mind- so they had to get inventive for me.
I got to road test their school holiday programme stuff as well- which including making wax candles old school. And using a massive old printing press to make prints with cardboard and ink.
I got to go on Josephine and the other train they had on display when we went and dusted them off so they'd be looking fine for their admirers.
There are four stand out places for me at the settlers museum.....
* The Transport room where you can ride a stationary Penny Farthing bicycle.
* The area where they had all the domestic artefacts I can still remember the smell of the butter ingrained into the timber of the butter churn.
*The costume area- amazing, amazing clothes from the late 1800's and Early 1900's. Beautiful dresses with full crinolines and petticoats.
And this place the hall of the settlers.
Can't you just imagine the stories they'd tell?
♥
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