National Museum Te Papa Tongareva

• Address: Te Aro, Wellington 6011, New Zealand;
• Phone: +64 4-381 7000;
• Website: https://www.tepapa.govt.nz/;
• Working hours: 10.00-18.00 without days off;
• Admission: free

Among the attractions of the New Zealand capital is to go to one of the largest and most interesting museums in the world - Te Papa Tongareva (National Museum of New Zealand ). Its name can be translated from the Maori language as "the place where the treasures of this land lie"

The museum is not only a treasure trove of artifacts, from the remains of dinosaurs and objects of life of ancient Maori and ending with modern avant-garde art and information technology, but also an important research and cultural center.

Building

The building of the museum impresses with its size: it covers an area of ​​36 thousand km ² and consists of 6 floors. On the floors of the building there are not only exhibitions of exhibits devoted to the culture and nature of New Zealand, but also cafes and souvenir shops. In the courtyard of the museum you will find artificial caves, swamps and original representatives of the local flora (for example, shrubs).

Expositions of the museum

The museum stands out among other similar institutions by multi-level arrangement of thematic exhibitions. So, the exhibits included in the gold fund of the National Art Collection are located at all levels. The second level should definitely visit high-tech lovers, which is devoted to an interactive exhibition, located here. From this level, you can also reach certain areas of the Bush City.

At the fifth level, visitors are expected to read the library library, where a lot of information is collected about the collections of this institution, and a scientific laboratory in which fascinating colorful experiments are conducted. After the visit, do not forget to visit the short-term exhibitions, which will tell you a lot about the history and culture of the country. And if this is not enough for you, go down to the fourth level and immerse yourself in the wonderful world of culture of local residents - Maori and Polynesians, and learn more about the history of the development of New Zealand by Europeans.

Other expositions that may interest you are:

• «From the mountains to the sea». Here, the remains of almost all representatives of the local fauna are collected, from prehistoric species to modern birds, animals and insects;
• "Plants". The exhibition is a dried herbarium, a collection of about 250 thousand ancient and modern plants;
• "Birds". The exposition includes 70 thousand effigies and skeletons of feathered inhabitants of the country;
• "Other vertebrate animals are sushi." From this exhibition you are unlikely to leave quickly: there are unique specimens of land amphibians, reptiles and mammals;
• "Vertebrate fossils". Here tourists will be able to touch the ancient history of our planet and fantasize how it was, studying the petrified skeletons of long-disappeared animals;
• "Mollusks";
• "Marine mammals";
• "Fish";
• "Insects";
• "Crustaceans";
• "Marine invertebrates".

The collection of Te-Papa-Tongarev has an exhibit that has no analogues in any other museum in the world: it is a giant squid, the size of which can even frighten an unprepared visitor. The length of this marine creature reached 10 m, and weight - 500 kg. Once the squid was caught by New Zealand fishermen in the Ross Sea, near the coast of Antarctica.

Exhibition halls

The Mana Pacific Hall is dedicated to the history of the indigenous tribes that settled a few thousand years ago on the small Pacific islands. Fans of a scientific approach to life can not pass by the original exhibition "On the Sheep's Back", which tells about the most important for the development of mankind discoveries, once committed by ancient people.

The exhibition "Toi Te Papa: the art of the nation" will certainly attract those who are interested in learning more about the peculiarities of the thousand-year culture of the indigenous people of this land: the Palekh and Maori tribes. For example, you will see with your own eyes one of the kind of marais - a house for prayers, erected about 2000 years ago. Also here are Aboriginal huts, weapons, utensils, household items, clothing - everything that was their daily life.

The younger generation will surely be pleasantly surprised by the hall dedicated to the famous "Lord of the Rings", where they will be met masterfully executed statues of elves and orcs. Much attention is paid to the modern history of New Zealand , the museum even reconstructed the battle scenes of the most famous battles.

How to get there?

To get to the museum, you can come by train to the central Wellington railway station and then walk 20 minutes on foot or take a taxi. Those who rented the car should go south through the center of the capital on Highway SH1, past Waterloo, Customhouse and Jervois Quays to Cable Street, where Te Papa Tongareva is located. Also tourists can get to this cultural institution by bus: most public public transport passes the stops of Willis Street and Courtenay Place, from which the museum is a few minutes on foot.