"It's hard to say what the highlights were. Truly I enjoyed absolutely everything,'' Dame Pasty said of her "great'' first visit to the museum.
At the end of her more than hour-long visit, she told museum director Dr Ian Griffin that she had recently been to the opening of the Te Papa gallery, which was "wonderful, but you've got equally wonderful [attractions]''.
Dame Patsy, accompanied by her husband, Sir David Gascoigne, toured the recently redeveloped Tuhura Otago Community Trust Science Centre
and the Planetarium, where she watched Far From Frozen, an immersive documentary on the Antarctic, and a trailer for Zealandia, co-produced by NHNZ.
Dame Patsy and Sir David also enjoyed close encounters with brightly coloured butterflies at the museum's upgraded Tropical Forest and butterfly house.
Dr Griffin and museum assistant curator, natural science, Kane Fleury, also briefed the visitors on the recent retrieval of fossilised moa footprints from a river in the Maniototo, now being safeguarded at the museum.
