Galleries

The museum's core exhibitions are presented in themed galleries. Check the What's on guide guide so you don't miss any special temporary exhibitions or activities on your visit.

Highlights of the core exhibitions

Watermarks exhibition

• See the fastest boat in the world, with  its amazing30-year unbroken speed record.
• Check out 100 years of the Aussie cossie, from a 1900s bathing costume to the famous 'fastskin' worn by the 2000 Australian Olympics team.
• Climb inside Kay Cottee's famous yacht Blackmores First Lady, that she sailed single-handed around the world without stopping.

Eora First People exhibition

• See ceremonial sculptures and handwoven works from Arnhem Land and Cape York

• Wonder at the beautifully decorated funeral poles and hollow log coffins from northern Australia, and delicate shellwork from Tasmania.

Navigators exhibition

• Gaze upon a ceiling of stars showing the constellations that helped guide navigators to Australia.
• Find the celestial globe produced by the great Flemish cartographer Willem Janszoon Blaeu in 1602 to train navigators for voyages to the Southern Hemisphere,

Commerce exhibition

• Document the life of a merchant mariner through a remarkable collection of personal artefacts.
• Try your hand at ocean commerce with our interactive game.

Passengers exhibition

• Walk around and inspect the details on the scale model of the 1948 ocean liner RMS Orcades which brought migrants to Australia.
• Consider the perils of sea travel when you look on the relics from the 1857 wreck of the Dunbar.

Navy exhibition

• Relax like a submariner in a tiny bunk (called a rack) and learn about all four warships named HMAS Sydney.

• Play the inter-active sonar game "What sound is that".