Archives: Discovery Centres

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…

There is a self-guided 800 m long walking track though a limestone outcrop with visible fossilised bones and gizzard stones from ancient birds. You can also see the remains of the largest known freshwater crocodile. The walking track has steps and is steep in places. It takes about one hour to complete. The site is very remote…

The Visitors Centre includes exhibits and films outlining the scale of production on the Burrup Peninsula and explaining gas extraction, liquefaction and exporting process. The Centre has a view overlooking the Woodside-operated Karratha Gas Plant with five gas processing trains and more than 65 000 cubic metres of LNG storage in each of four (largely buried) spherical tanks. The plant…

Tours of the Bundaberg Rum distillery take visitors inside the facility to see and smell the 5 million litre molasses well, the fermentation tanks, distillation column and the 75 000 litre oak maturation tanks. The on-site museum is in a retired Bondstore, and has a collection of advertising and marketing ephemera from the past century, and tells…

The PowerWorks Education Centre features artefacts from coal mines and power stations in the Latrobe Valley – including a giant bucket from a coal dredger. The Centre tells the story of the development of power generation in the valley. PowerWorks overlooks the former Hazelwood brown coal mine. The Centre was opened in 1994 as a refurbishment…

The observatory has four computer controlled telescopes. Observing sessions include looking at the planets that are visible that night, as well as binary stars and nebula. Accessibility is good with all the instruments being situated at ground level. Be sure to take warm clothing for an observing session. Sky tours run from 7:00 pm from April…

The gardens range over 42 ha and there are more than 8 km of walking tracks, including a 1 km loop for visitors with limited mobility. The gardens are on Forestry NSW land that was logged about a century ago. The site was allocated for the botanic garden in 1987 and the visitor centre opened in 2001. The Wallace…

The Head of the Bight Visitors Centre is located on Yalata Aboriginal Land, near the Nullarbor Roadhouse (about four hours drive west of Ceduna). The Centre has a cafe and gift shop, as well as toilets and picnic area. It is the entrance to a series of clifftop boardwalks and viewing platforms overlooking the Southern…