Museum Guide

To Download a copy of the Museum Trail Guide Brochure click here.

Each Museum or Heritage Centre on the trail offers up something more unique and special than the last; showcasing their local gold or coal mining heritage, influential agricultural history, Maori culture, the regions geographical past and collectables and relics from a bygone era.

The central North Island holds a strong historical significance for Maori, being the birthplace of the Kingitanga Movement (Maori King Movement) and the home of the Maori King at Turangawaewae as well as the final resting place for one of the great voyaging Tainui canoes, and the site of many land wars between the Maori and the British.

Maori history is illustrated throughout the regions musuems including the Waikato Museum in Hamilton’s CBD. Boasting a Tangata Whenua Collection with more than 30,000 objects relating to Tainui and other neighbouring iwi (tribes) and a magnificent 200-year-old carved waka taua (war canoe) overlooking the significant Waikato River. The museum has also recently opened ‘Never a dull moment’, an interactive exhibition which showcases Hamilton’s colourful past as it built to the city that now stands. Further south, Te Awamutu Museum holds the figure of Uenuku – one of the most valued taonga (treasures) of the Tainui people.

European settlers and their descendants have also thrived in the region, creating a heritage based on agriculture, mining, power generation and more recently economic and creative industries. The Waikato Coalfields Museum in Huntly, the distinctive Firth Tower Museum in Matamata, the Putaruru Timber Museum, the Waitomo Caves Discovery Centre, Tirau Museum and Coromandel gold Mining Museum all showcase the unique entrepreneurial spirit of the region and are a collector’s dream.
Explore off the beaten track to some of the lesser known museums to make exceptional finds, including memorable characters whose passions lie in the pages of history.

To Download a copy of the Museum Trail Guide Brochure click here.