Time Traveller Discovery Trail | Strathalbyn National Trust Museum | Review

Step into the past to become a time traveller at the Strathalbyn National Trust Museum.

Review by Angelica-Hazel

Strathalbyn is the sweetest little town in the Adelaide Hills with a lot of history, rolling hills and a great selection of places to eat, drink and explore. If you have history loving kids and are in search of a destination and activity that is a bit outside the box, give Strathalbyn and the Time Traveller Discovery Trail a try!

The Strathalbyn museum is housed in the former police station and courthouse building and has so many nooks and crannies to explore. As you pull up to the museum the first things you notice are the cream picket fence, colourful bunting flags and an old machine out the front of the pretty old building. As you enter the museum you are greeted by the friendliest staff who are not only enthusiastic about their work, they are great with kids and talk you through the trail and how to complete your missions.

After the introductory talk we made our way through the various rooms of the museum. Each room has a point of difference and you need to find the clues, crack secret codes and become hands on with the artefacts. Some of the most notable rooms and activities for our kids were the surprise pianola, the hidden grotto, the spooky medical room and the final room where they got to pretend they were in jail. The kids also got a kick out of completing all ten missions and receiving their time traveller badge.

The entire activity took us about an hour to complete. There is a lovely open area in the middle of the museum with tables and chairs  and the staff were kind enough to let us sit and enjoy our packed lunches here.

Strathalbyn is about an hour from Adelaide depending on what suburb you come from. We found it worked well to eat lunch before the mission and then grab something small after the activity. We stopped in at Little Eats café on the main street of Hahndorf for a colourful biscuit treat for our little time travellers and a De Groots caffeine hit for the adults. We also had a nice wander at the little shops and popped our heads into the Antiques Bazaar before heading home.

All in all, we had a fantastic time in Strathalbyn and the Time Traveller Discovery Trail provided the perfect excuse for a day trip to this town. We visited with two kids aged seven and five. We found our seven year old was quite cluey and was able to write down all of the answers herself with a bit of gentle guidance. Our younger daughter needed a bit more help, but this didn’t take away from the fun of the activity. Overall the museum and this event provided an interactive way to learn and get the kids excited about history. The museum was calm, interesting and we would absolutely recommend it to families.

What we like about

• The interactive aspects of the museum, the low cost of this activity and the opportunity to explore a town we don’t often think to visit.

Things to consider

• its a long drive so don’t forget to go to the bathroom before you go. We also recommend taking sandwiches or packed lunches to enjoy before your mission to keep the costs down. 

Coffee and food options nearby

• We visited Little Eats cafe. The Appleseed cafe is another popular choice and there are lots of great bakeries 

Location:

1 Rankine St, Strathalbyn 

For more information and all enquiries please visit the Strathalbyn National Trust Museum website or follow their Facebook page.

At Play & Go Adelaide we make every effort to provide accurate information to the best of our knowledge at the time of publication. We recommend confirming times, dates and details directly before making any plans as details may be subject to change.

As per all our Play & Go reviews, this is not a sponsored post and our review is done completely independently. All photos are by Play & Go (unless specified).

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