The Powerhouse Museum- Last Visit Before Renovations Begin

Hi friends welcome to Friday favourites! Today I wanted to show you a favourite highlight from my week – a fun day out with my lovely friend for lunch and a visit to the Powerhouse Museum in Ultimo, Sydney.

Lunch At Darling Harbour

We got off the train at Town Hall station and then walked to Darling Harbour. It was cloudy and oh so humid!!

We had lunch at a cafe called The Blackbird Cafe and we both ordered the chicken quinoa salad. It was a healthy, light and delicious option. But I can’t lie, I could have done with a big bowl of chips as well!

After lunch, we made our way to the Powerhouse Museum and walked past the Ian Thorpe Aquatic Centre.

The Powerhouse Museum

Here’s the entrance to the museum.

The Powerhouse Museum is a science and design museum that displays a huge collection of artifacts related to technology, science, design, decorative arts and social history. It’s well known for being interactive and immersive so it’s a perfect place to take kids. Well, my friend and I have grown-up kids now so while we walked around we were reminiscing about our past trips with our kids.

I used to buy a yearly family pass and we would often go in on the weekends for a day trip. We would see all the paid exhibitions for free as part of the yearly pass. It was so worth paying for this back then and we made sure to make the most of it.

We both agreed that it even though we miss those days. Now we can enjoy exploring places like The Powerhouse Museum together. Yay!

There was so much to see and a whole lot of new exhibits that neither of us had seen before. I took a whole lot of video and I meant to post it to my Instagram stories. I may still do that soon so you can explore with me.

One thing both my friend and I noticed during this visit is that there are no clear signs to the exhibits and they all seem to flow on into one another. We seemed to be saying ‘Where are we?’ and ‘What’s this exhibit about?’ a lot of the time because the whole museum is kind of built on different levels and it’s hard to know which level you are on!

I don’t think either of us noticed this obvious detail when we took our kids along for a visit. We were always just busy chasing after them and walking through the museum in no particular order. Back then I just remember hearing this a lot ‘Hey mum look at this!’ ‘Hey let’s go here’. Ok then, but hey let poor mum catch up!! Haha, those were the days!

So I’ll just show you a whole lot of pics of what we saw on the day.

Fashion

Here is the outfit that Kylie Minogue wore for the closing ceremony of the Sydney Olympic Games in the year 2000.

Costumes from the famous Australian movie ‘Strictly Ballroom’.

‘Strictly Ballroom’ was directed by Baz Luhrmann and it’s a movie about the dazzling and competitive world of ballroom dancing. In true Baz Luhrmann style, the movie is amazingly colourful and full of eccentric characters, extravagant dance sequences and quirky offbeat humour. It really is such a fun movie. Have you seen it? If you haven’t then you should, it’s a unique experience that’s for sure!

A puffy shirt designed by Victor and Rolfe from 2005. Ha, does it remind you of the Seinfeld puffy shirt?

A giant kewpie doll and characters from Sydney’s Luna Park.

Doll House

This intricate Victorian (I think it was Victorian) doll house was amazing.

Transport Exhibit

The transport exhibit took us on a journey of various modes of transportation throughout history including trains, planes and horse-drawn carriages.

Here is what the train timetables used to look like and yes I remember seeing similar ones to those at my local train station when I used to catch the train to school. Oh man, I feel old!

Some fancy jewellery displays from various decades.

Uranium Chandelier

This chandelier is made from uranium glass that glows fluorescent when it is lit in the dark. Isn’t it beautiful?

Here’s a blurb that explains everything in detail.

The Arnotts Biscuit Display.

Arnotts is an iconic Australian biscuit company founded in 1865. We have all grown up eating delicious Arnott’s biscuits such as Assorted Creams, Tim Tams, Scotch Fingers, and Shapes. Hmm I’m getting hungry! We all love Arnott’s biscuits over here!

Arnott’s biscuits are very nostalgic and I guess that’s why it may have served as an inspiration for this dress. It’s called Iced Vo Vo just like the Iced Vo Vo biscuit.

Old Australian Advertisements

Australian Design Label – Studibaker Hawk

Then I spotted this dress and all my memories from being a teen in the 80s came flooding back. This dress made by the design label Studibaker Hawk was everyone’s dream back when I was in high school. If you turned up to the school formal with a Studibaker Hawk dress you were the envy of everybody!

Well everybody except me because I thought they were way too over the top. All those ruffles and lace under the dress…nah…not my thing, not even in the good old 80s. Plus they were also ridiculously expensive too. I guess I have always preferred a much more minimal style of dressing.

Interactive Displays

Here’s me and my friend!

I’m not sure how this interactive display worked exactly. But if you stood in front of a giant screen your image was projected in the form of black lines. We both stood there waving our arms up and down and may have broken out in a dance too.

Time For A Break

We stopped for a coffee and cake then walked back to Town hall for a quick look at the shops before heading home.

I loved visiting The Powerhouse Museum and I’m so glad that we squeezed in one more visit before it closes on the 5th of February for a three-year renovation period. There are big plans to make the museum even bigger and better. I can’t wait to see how it turns out.

Thanks so much for joining me today. I am heading into my final week of the summer school holidays and I can hardly believe how fast the time has gone…sigh!This upcoming week I plan to stay in the moment and squeeze in more holiday fun right up to the very last minute. I don’t even want to think about going back to work just yet!

So here’s to an amazing weekend and I look forward to being back on Monday!

Linking up with Andrea and Erika