Things to do in Melbourne in June

NB: Melbourne Zoo, Werribee Zoo and Healesville Sanctuary reopen on June 1, 2020.

While keeping their distance, visitors can still enjoy the Dinosaurs at the zoo experience at all three zoos.  Working in a secret lab, scientists at Melbourne's main three zoos have discovered a way to clone dinosaur DNA, found inside mosquitoes trapped in amber. They've filled in the missing sequences using frog DNA to create moving, roaring dinosaurs, which you can see for 100 days throughout the zoos. What could possibly go wrong? OK, we might have got a little bit over-excited about the prospect of dinosaurs at the zoo. These dinosaurs are large-scale models of these ancient beasts, but they will be roaming around at Healesville, Werribee and Melbourne zoos again until July. If you're lucky, you might see a keeper waking a sleeping dinosaur, or come face to face with a moving prehistoric creature. At Melbourne Zoo you can experience the newly landscaped Dino Lab. See baby dinosaurs sleeping in a dino nest, visit the incubation station to see the breeding program, or kids can go on a dino dig and excavate fossils to help the Zoo's Dino Field Research team. There will be daily activities and plenty of dino facts to learn. At Werribee Open Range Zoo, you calk walk through the Dinosaur River Trail. There are several life-sized dinosaurs to see and get up close and personal with, including the massive Tyrannosaurus rex.  And at Healesville Sanctuary, you can experience the Lost Sanctuary and hea

NB: The NGV will be reopening on June 27.

The National Gallery of Victoria has always been quite forward-thinking in its integration of design and fashion into its exhibition program, but it also has a hugely impressive collection of design, including a heap of pieces from Japanese label Comme des Garçons. The label is led by founder and designer Rei Kawakubo, who has been creating innovative fashion since the 1970s, and is continuing on that journey today. The NGV collection includes key pieces by Kawakubo, which are being shown in this free exhibition. They've been donated by Takamasa Takahashi since 2005, and together show how Kawakubo's designs challenged tradition to create a new fashion vocabulary. The pieces range from 1981, when Kawakubo first showed work in Paris, to recent designs from the 2014 'Blood and Roses' collection.

Update 29/05/20: Following the shutdowns, the Wizard's Den will reopen four days a week from June 24. Staff have implemented measures to ensure a safe experience and guests who book tickets before the end of May can get a 20 per cent discount (apply the 'makesomemagic' promo code when booking). While you won’t find the most famed greasy-haired potions masters or boy wizard at this creative drinking experience, you will have a lot of fun at the Wizard's Den if you’re keen on the occult. At this Fitzroy pop-up experience you can channel the powers of your coven idol, from Sabrina to Hermione, and brew devilish (read: alcoholic) concoctions over the course of 90-minutes.  The experience takes place upstairs at Brunswick Street bar Polly, which has been masterfully decked out to suit the theme. Hefty tomes hang from the ceiling, eye-catching glassware and bottles of elixirs and “witch’s brew” surround dripping candles and fairy lights.  A wand is supplied upon entry at the Wizard's Den, but you'll have to BYO robe if you want to wear one (they used to be supplied before the shutdowns). Your golden ticket also covers the cost of a beer or mulled wine – the remainder of the drinks you’ll have to concoct yourself in two fun scavenger hunts. Groups will be tasked with finding special ingredients located all over the bar by solving puzzles and tricky riddles. Don’t worry though, you’ll be guided by your trusty potion master during the session (but we might suggest procuring some Felix

Shakespeare famously wrote in As You Like It that, “all the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” Thanks to producer, actor, writer and director David Meadow, that holds truer now than ever before in these midsummer-dreaming days of lockdown. He has assembled actors from across the globe to perform Shakespeare’s beloved history plays from their living rooms as a series of livestream events spread across four months. Dubbed the very Game of Throne’s sounding Age of Crowns, it’s a collaboration between St Kilda’s Alex Theatre, Melbourne actors’ company Circle in the Sand and the International Actors Ensemble. The latter is a band of merry players who met at Shakespeare’s Globe in London in 2015 and who and hail from no fewer than 14 different countries. The show must go online. Taking a bow on Monday April 27 at 7pm AEST, Karlis Zaid plays the war-hungry king in Richard II. From then on there’s a new play every fortnight, cycling through the Henriad and The War of the Roses plays, plus some much-needed comic relief from the power-hungry plotting and bloody battles with The Merry Wives of Windsor. Coming to a close with Montgomery Sutton as both Richard III and the Duke of Gloucester on August 31, in a reversal of the Shakespearean tradition of men playing the female parts, Amy Bradney-George will portray King Henry VI. Seton Pollock plays the wayward Hal, with Jonathan fuller rounding out the main cast as both Henry IV and Bolingbroke. The rest of the ense

It is important (perhaps now more than ever) to prioritise our health, both physically and emotionally. With that in mind, Handpicked Wines is hosting virtual yoga and wine tasting classes every Saturday through until mid July. The online yoga and wine classes are led by experts and held live over Zoom. First guests participate in a 45-minute yoga class followed by a 30-minute wine tasting session hosted by a Handpicked Wines sommelier.  The online sessions cost $95 but includes three bottles of wine that are sent to your house prior. Depending on what date you select, you'll be tasting either textured whites, bold reds or a Italian whites. The virtual yoga and wine classes are available across Australia, but keep in mind that it can take up to five business days for your booze to arrive.

Update 20/04/20: Bunjil Place is currently closed but you can still enjoy The New Black Vanguard through a virtual tour. You can explore the tour at your own pace, select highlights or get a quick overview of the exhibition by watching this short video walkthrough. The online tour will be available until September 2020.  In 2018, Tyler Mitchell became the first African-American photographer to shoot the cover of US Vogue, when his image of Beyoncé became the face of the magazine’s September edition. Mitchell is one of 15 emerging and established black photographers featured in The New Black Vanguard: Photography between Art and Fashion, which comes to Bunjil Place Gallery as part of the Photo 2020 International Festival of Photography. With photographers hailing from London to Lagos, the exhibition challenges the idea of blackness as homogenous, and explores ideas around beauty, race and gender. Accompanying it will be Luke Willis Thompson’s video work autoportrait 2017, a silent portrait of Diamond Phillips, who made headlines in 2016 when she live-streamed the fatal shooting of her boyfriend by a Minnesotan police officer.

We've collected the best ways for you to experience Melbourne while staying at home here into this hub, so you can stay sane, comfortable, fed, watered and entertained at home – while helping small business owners, hospitality workers and creative people who desperately need your business.

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Guess what? Not everything in Melbourne costs a bunch of money. From art shows to coffee tastings, there are a bunch of things to do in this fine city that you can do for free – here are our favourites.

Find all the best art exhibitions in Melbourne over the next few weeks. 

Melbourne's theatre scene has really kicked into top gear this February, with our major companies starting their mainstage seasons in grand style. Malthouse Theatre has a brilliantly funny two-man take on The Importance of Being Earnest, while Melbourne Theatre Company is premiering the debut play by Benjamin Law. There's plenty of brilliant queer performance around the city thanks to Midsumma Festival, while Asia TOPA is filling our stages with surprising and eclectic shows from the Asia-Pacific region.

If you're looking for a break from the inner-city grid, there's no better cure than a day trip from Melbourne. The state of Victoria is full of friendly neighbourhood towns, whether you're in the mood for a winery tour, a road trip or a national park to explore.

Borrow your nanna's tartan shopping trolley and venture out to one of Melbourne's best markets for farm-fresh produce, designer homewares, vintage fashions and tasty street food.

If you love food and live in Melbourne, your 'must-try' list of new restaurants, cafés and bars probably takes up your phone's entire storage capacity by now. Luckily, we've put together a curated list of the newest, hottest and coolest restaurants our critics are raving about. 

From food to laneways, drinking to ghosts, these tours are the best way to get to know a different side of Melbourne.

We've scoped out the best activities Melbourne has to offer kids of all ages, and even a few that will keep the whole family entertained.