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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
Entertainment
Clem Bastow

My night at the museum … for an ‘adult sleepover’, with lots of dinosaurs and no kids allowed

Writer Clem Bastow preparing for her night at the museum
‘Will this adventure become a high school trauma immersion experience as I hang out on the fringes of the sleepover?’ … Clem Bastow prepares for her night at Melbourne Museum. Photograph: Penny Stephens/The Guardian

It’s about 1.30am and I’ve just heard a spooky noise – the sort of noise that would usually send me shooting out of bed with a torch and baseball bat to investigate my no doubt impending doom. Fortunately, on this occasion I am not alone in my flat but surrounded by 39 other nerds sleeping (relatively) soundly in the Dinosaur Walk at Melbourne Museum. The source of the noise is a nearby tawny frogmouth.

I’m at the second ever grownups’ (note: not “adults only”) sleepover at Melbourne Museum, following in the footsteps of the brave children who have gone before us. The UK’s Natural History Museum, the American Museum of Natural History in New York and Sydney’s Australian Museum have all hosted grownup sleepovers, but this is new for Melbourne: BYO pillow, sleeping bag and torch, and go bananas after dark while recapturing your childhood.

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