At at time when British museums are increasingly bowing to the cult of "accessibility", with its concomitant tendency to infantilise visitors, I liked the burst of poetry in one of the captions at the Australian National Maritime Museum: “Surfing is a look, an ideology, a spiritual quest, an adrenalin rush, a cult of cool, a burst of rage, even a religion.”

Sydney is, perhaps pre-eminently, a maritime city, as the museum quite convincingly proves. There are displays on the history of surfing, swimming apparel and shipping: the story of the wreck of the Batavia in the 17th century (although actually off the western Australian coast) is particularly gripping, not to say chilling. A whole section is devoted to the enduring Aboriginal relationship with the water.

The museum design is pleasingly open and spacious; indeed, the building is meant to resemble a ship.

2 Murray Street, Darling Harbour
+61 2 9298 3777
open daily
free admission

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