The Dunedin Museum of Natural Mystery

The Dunedin Museum of Natural Mystery The Dunedin Museum of Natural Mystery is a small private museum which opened on March 23rd, 2018

Another new acquisition to the museums ‘Martin Phillipps and The Chills collection is this large vinyl sign advertising ...
05/09/2026

Another new acquisition to the museums ‘Martin Phillipps and The Chills collection is this large vinyl sign advertising The Chills album - ‘Silver Bullets’. (2015)Martin was very focused on certain things and one was that Chill’s albums usually had to have a title made up of two words starting with ‘S’ and ‘B’ , eg. Sun Burnt, Snow Bound, Scatter Brain, Spring Board, Submarine Bells etc. The museum is open today from 10-5.

A recent donation to the museum is this mobile hospital chair that used to reside at Seacliff Psychiatric Hospital north...
03/09/2026

A recent donation to the museum is this mobile hospital chair that used to reside at Seacliff Psychiatric Hospital north of Dunedin before being moved to the new hospital at Cherry Farm( also since closed). More recently the chair was used by Amelia Dougherty while she worked on her honours degree at the local art school. Thank you very much Amelia!!!This is the fourth piece of furniture/ fitting we have from Seaclff - once the largest building in the country at the museum. We are open this Friday from 12-5 and over the weekend from 10-5.

It’s always a good sign of Spring when the Snakes Head fritillaries emerge from their winter hibernation in the museum g...
01/09/2026

It’s always a good sign of Spring when the Snakes Head fritillaries emerge from their winter hibernation in the museum garden. When I was a little boy we lived in Sweden where they were quite a common wild flower in some places,

I’m the curator of a ‘ bone museum’ so I think about them quite a bit. Like most people I’ve broken a few of my own.The ...
26/08/2026

I’m the curator of a ‘ bone museum’ so I think about them quite a bit.

Like most people I’ve broken a few of my own.

The first one was my left arm when I was about 5 when my friend, Ian, threw a stick in the spokes of my bike while we were riding along with predictable results. I went into the house crying and my father ( a doctor) told me to harden up and sent me to my room. I kept crying and told him it ‘hurt in my bone.’ At that point he took it seriously and we went to the hospital. About two years later Ian broke the same bone demonstrating a ‘judo’ throw.

I had a good run with no bone injuries until 1996 when I broke my fibula( thin lower leg bone) in a ‘gardening accident’ when a rotten bit of wood collapsed underneath me. I was looking after my young children at the time and they were very upset at the amount of swearing on my part!

In 2018 I broke my collarbone at the museum trying to push garden waste into a moveable bin - which decided to move unexpectedly and eject me!

My most recent injury occurred ten days ago at the museum when I tripped on a power cord. At first I did what I usually do and tried to pretend I was ok. I tried to tough it out and left if for a week before getting an xray. Great service at the hospital.
You can see in this photo I’ve chipped the edge of my humerus( upper arm bone). It’s still pretty painful but that chip should grow bone around it and hopefully be ok without any intervention.

Look after your bones people!

I've been going through some of my old photos recently and found these old ones from late 1984 taken by Greg Burt of our...
24/08/2026

I've been going through some of my old photos recently and found these old ones from late 1984 taken by Greg Burt of our first band, Crystal Zoom!(1983-85)This is actually Crystal Zoom (Mark 3) with from left to right (in the lineup photo) Mike Weston,myself (wearing a wedding dress), Rob Murphy and Barry Blackler. Shortly after this Mike and me moved to Auckland formed Crystal Zoom! Mark 4 but after some bad stuff went down I quit and moved back to Dunedin and formed Let's Get Naked(1986-90)with Rob. Mike stayed in Auckland and still makes music and art. Barry relocated to the UK where he played with The Jesus and the Mary Chain amongst others before moving back to NZ and forming Blackout Management with his partner Nance. He's still a hell of a drummer. Rob is also still making music (sometimes with Barry) and recording and is pretty much Mr Music in Dunedin. I wonder what ever happened to that dress!?

20/08/2026

A carved wooden sculpture designed to help increase protection, healing, and community prosperity. The two holes probably contained spiritually charge materials or power substances (Bishimba) which were central to the figure's function. The skull on the top is from a pig of some kind with an extra antelope horn attached. The frontal skin is that of a pangolin. The skins covering from the back of the figure are from a civet.Thank you to Tūhura Otago Museum for their help in frezing to remove insects.
(Kindly donated by the Maestro - Desmond Bovey!

20/08/2026

Songye Tribal Power Figure or Minkisi
Congo Region (1950’s?)

A carved wooden sculpture designed to help increase protection, healing, and community prosperity. The two holes probably contained spiritually charge materials or power substances (Bishimba) which were central to the figure's function. The skull on the top is from a pig of some kind with an extra antelope horn attached. The frontal skin is that of a pangolin. The skins covering from the back of the figure are from a civet. Thank you to Tūhura Otago Museum with their help with preservation!
(Kindly donated by the on and oly - Desmond Bovey)

A new addition to the collection is this lovely baby taxidermized hedgehog produced by Te Papa technician, Antoinette. ...
18/08/2026

A new addition to the collection is this lovely baby taxidermized hedgehog produced by Te Papa technician, Antoinette. I know they’re an introduced species but I love hedgehogs! I tried working with the remains of a hedgehog once and got my fingers pricked to hell so I can’t imagine how many times Antoinette got bloody fingers preparing this lovely little specimen!

In 2003 the United States government, under George Bush junior, invaded Iraq, codenamed Operation Iraqi Freedom and al...
16/08/2026

In 2003 the United States government, under George Bush junior, invaded Iraq, codenamed Operation Iraqi Freedom and although they haven't invaded Iran yet the same 'saving the local people' mantra has been advanced as the justification for destroying yet another country's infrastructure. Have we learned nothing?

In March of the same year a US-led coalition overthrew the regime of Saddam Hussein within weeks, based on unproven claims that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction and supported terrorism. These claims turned out to be untrue but the US troops remained for years.

‘Major combat’ itself ended by May 1, 2003 but this led to a long occupation and then an insurgency and then the rise of ISIS - good job as usual team!

This is a menu(in the museum's collection) of what the US troops ate on Christmas Day during their occupation of Iraq in 2003.Thank you to my good friend, Tom Sampson, who was there on the day!

Address

61 Royal Terrace
Dunedin
9016

Opening Hours

Friday 12pm - 5pm
Saturday 10am - 5pm
Sunday 10am - 5pm

Telephone

+64210329906

Website

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