Great experience to wander and see what Australian gardens offer. The volunteers are excellent and…read morefriendly and show great interest in their gardens.

If you are nearby you need to visit here. It is free to enter…read more They have stunning exhibits and you could easily spend a full day here. We came on the off chance as we noticed a brown sign on the freeway. With big information signs outside we were learning before we entered. The Australian desert garden is gorgeous. There is an awesome play area for the kidlets and even an area to wade in the water which our little one loved. A hidden treasure that everyone needs to visit!

"The Tan" as it is affectionately known (due to its surface of tan-coloured stone), is one of the…read moremost popular running tracks in Melbourne. It is 3.87km in distance and borders the Royal Botanic Gardens as well as the Kings Domain. The Tan originally served as a horse track and is now regularly used by runners, walkers, locals, visitors and even the odd celebrity! "Go the Tan," as well as many other regular fun runs and competitive marathons are often held at The Tan, especially on weekends it is a very busy running track filled with people getting their daily exercise as well as others wandering through on their way to a picnic at the Botanic Gardens gorgeous parkland. Open 24/7 but the lights turned off between midnight and 5:30am

I love going for a run or walk around The Tan Track. It's such a beautiful part of Melbourne with…read morethe lower part taking in the river, the dreaded Anderson St hill perfect for some hill sprints and the upper side encircling the Botanic Gardens and cafes along Domain Road. There are 250m markers all the way along the nearly 4km track (3.87km to be exact) and it's really well lit, with the lights only switched off between 12am and 5am. It's also a sandy gravelly surface that a bit softer on your knees and ankles than the old bitumen. There are always lots of people walking or running around, on their own, in groups, with dogs or prams. There's quite a few water bubblers all along the route, some of which are currently out of order due to irrigation works (note: they have been offline for more than 6 months and I have no idea when they will be back online). If you are a local or visiting from out of town it's a great spot to get some fresh air and turn the legs over!

Quality/Quantity - I really like the dinosaur exhibits! So…read morecool. And you do not have to be a kid to enjoy this. Very immersive exhibits! Yes, this museum is very kid friendly. Current special events & exhibitions. Titanic until 4/14/24. High Tea until 4/14/24. 2/8/24 Nocturnal - Museum after dark. 2/10/24 Lunar New Year Day. 2/14/24 Valentine Day event. There are so many more exhibits and events, see website. (Yelp has the wrong website). https://museumsvictoria.com.au/melbournemuseum/ Atmosphere - Another beautiful museum. And in the Carlton Gardens. Even the bathrooms are modern and beautiful... 4 floors, see directory. IMAX theater. Market Cafe. Open 7 days a week from 9am to 5pm. Yelp hours differ slightly. Service - Good. Price - $15AUD per person. Owner Comment - Congrats on your success since 2000.

Decently sized museum with lots of areas to explore a different variety of exhibitions…read more You can gets lots of historical information regarding the settlers of Australia, both new and old. There are also more modern exhibitions, including Lego. The place is great for both museum enthusiasts as well as for families with kids. The staff is friendly and can direct you if needed. The facilities are modern with plenty of restrooms and other accommodations. The crowds also seem to have been mostly well controlled. I'd say the dinosaur display is the one most definitely work checking out.

A rehabilitated sand mine, the Royal Botanic Gardens at Cranbourne now feature over 100,000 native…read moreplants from 1900 plant varieties. In a stunning setting featuring a central desert with North South garden bed. Peter, our guide led us around the garden home to rare bandicoots, swamp rats, tiger snakes and all manner of native birds. With an encyclopedic knowledge of the plants on show Peter was able to guide us through the many landscapes representative of this giant continent in just 30 minutes seeing Gymea Lilies, Grevillea, Hibiscus, Bottle Brush, Banksia, Kangaroo Paw, Melaleuca, Wollemi Pines and some of the 900 odd Eucalypt tree species including Snow, Scribbly, Spotted, Red, Box and Ironbark gum trees. Peter's knowledge base (including Latin names) was nothing short of amazing matching the breathtaking landscapes we quietly glided past. For lunch we headed upstairs to panoramic views of the gardens and a traditional Aussie BBQ with burgers, salad, caramelized onions and Kangaroo sausages on the menu (Poor Skippy!) washed down with a cool refreshing Lemon Myrtle drink. There's a nice gift shop here too.

I'm going to let you in on a little secret. Not many people know this but... Cranbourne Botanic…read moreGardens is part of the Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria. That's right. The same people who bring you the beauty of the Royal Botanic Gardens in the city, bring you this gem for the Southeast burbs to enjoy. It's definitely a reason to make a day to enjoy Cranbourne. The whole thing is free and they have a lot of features to please any visitor. There's a beautiful Australian garden. You can spend an hour going through the loop, or longer if you want to really get off the beaten track and explore. There are bike tracks (with more than 6km of track) and a Woodlands picnic area. Heaps of walks to choose from: ranging from 400m to 5.4km. Apparently the "must do" is the Trig Point Lookout, a 400m loop. It's a 360 view of Mt Macedon, city skyline, Dandenong Ranges, Port Phillip Bay and Western Port. The whole place is really bigger than you'd think and the car park is right smack in the middle. If you like tours, there are two available: Snapshots of Australia (60 minutes) and the Explorer (an open-air bus that goes for 25 minutes). With a café and a gift shop, this park is rated. Open daily from 9am- 5pm.

ACMI, formerly known as the Australian Centre for the Moving Image, is a free museum for everything…read moreabove movies, television and video games. Easy to find in Federation Square. So interesting to wander and see how movies are made as well as props from movies and television shows. Loved the section on animation. Grab a disc to collect information that you can view later about what you experienced. Definitely worth a short or long detour to ACMI.

We were walking around Melbourne and checking out it without a real purpose and saw a sign saying…read morethat entrance was free. You only had to pay extra if you wanted to experience the exhibit they have running at the time, which would probably be worth it. It seems to be a rotating exhibit. The free part was about the moving picture over the years. When you go in they give you this little disk that had a unique code and probably an nfc chip so you can tap it at each exhibit you liked to "collect" it and go to a website later and vote so the things you saw once again. This really makes you want to check more exhibits out and go all around. I think I connected 45 because at the end they have a spot to check how many exhibits you collected. They even had a station where you could create your own flip book. You would stand in front of a screen which would record you mongering for 3-5 seconds and then at the gift shop you could see the flip book and but it if you wanted. My wife and I both bought ours.. a more personalized souvenir. At the end they have a few kiosks where you can tap your cats to donate and we did that because this is definitely an experience that is worth staying around. I ain't it must get really busy on the weekends, but during the day in a weekend, it was the right amount of busy. I would definitely check it out and kids would love it.

I love exploring local museums so I stopped here to learn more about how Australia became a big hub…read morefor immigration. I learned alot and I loved how vibrant the exhibits were.

I visited this museum on my first day in Melbourne in hopes of learning the history of the area…read more This place did not disappoint! For what seemed to be such a small museum actually turned into hours of me poring over every word on timelines and information they gave. Learning the history of the First People's and the colonization of Australia was incredible, but eerily familiar. The parallels between US history and Australian history were shocking and I felt so ignorant not having known all of that. I love the recognition of the First People's and the stories that are being told recognizing the terrible past. In talking to Australians, they admit they have a long way to go. As an American, it feels like Australia is in the future and we are way in the past still denying the truth. This museum was amazing! They also had an exhibit called "Joy" that I was unaware about until I was inside of the museum. I loved it! It was filled with whimsy and color and sound and then went into subjects and posed questions to stimulate introspection. I walked away feeling like I learned a little about myself too. I highly recommend this museum! It gave me an amazing foundation of history that helped me learn more as I explored and visited more museums!

TL:DR - Great old building that really transports you back. Lots of great stories about old…read moreprisoners, but just reading stories over and over again gets repetitive and boring after a while. The watch house tour is a must, however. Man, this place is cool. Great way to kill 3 hours. The prison itself has an old timey haunted prison look to it. Lots of bare concrete and stone with lots of drab dark cells. It really transports you back into time with lots of great stories about the inmates held their, former beliefs about prison reform, and about Ned Kelly. Honestly, all the focus on Ned Kelly didn't make a ton of sense to me as an American, so it was a weird focus for me. But the star of the visit was the watch house experience. You get to tour a separate part of the prison that served as an intake center until 1994, but the tour is given from the prisoner perspective, where you're "arrested" by a guard/tour guide. The guide was phenomenal and took his role seriously, which was great. The only reason this place didn't get 5*s is because after a while the prison itself got a bit old. The stories were great the first 15 cells, but then got old. It turned into a great freaky location with 50 Wikipedia articles for people to read. Would have been great if it was a bit more interactive.

Absolutely amazing service and heard scratches coming from walls and heard a voice say "get out of…read moremy prison" whisper in my ear when I was only one in the gaol doing ghost investigations I contacted Ned Kelly

Got to check out the famous hosier lane. So much cool art and was nice it wasn't over crowded so…read moreyou could really walk around and enjoy it. There was a little construction going on one end, but besides that, definitely a cool spot to check out!

Feels like I moved back to LA (minus the homeless people and syringes). I like all of the graffiti…read moreartwork. The rule in Melbourne is that you can only cover it up if you do better than what's already on the wall. I have no idea how often people paint over other people's work. Cool spot to take pics and walk around and have some fun.