The Women's Museum of Australia, housed in the beautifully restored 1890s HM Gaol building on Stuart Terrace, celebrates the contributions of women to Australian life with a particular focus on the pioneering women of the outback and Central Australia. The exhibits cover nurses, teachers, missionaries, Aboriginal women, and the ordinary women who built and sustained communities in one of the most challenging environments in the world.
The museum is small but thoughtfully curated, with strong oral history recordings alongside the more conventional display cases and photographs. The historic gaol building — with its original cell blocks, exercise yard, and warder's cottage — is atmospheric and well interpreted. Worth an hour of anyone's time.