Time to Dig Dinosaurs, Colonial Times and Mary Poppins!

Queensland's heritage city of Maryborough is famous for its quirky living colonial history but now it is heading all the way back to prehistoric times.

For the next few months Maryborough's heritage-listed City Hall will be overrun by dinosaurs and prehistoric creatures of all shapes and sizes as it stages Explore-a-saurus.

This interactive exhibition features amazing animatronic versions of some of the world's most famous dinosaurs, including Muttaburrasaurus, one of the most complete dinosaur skeleton specimens ever found in Australia, and the carnivorous Tyrannosaurus rex, King of the Cretaceous Period.

Exploring the concepts of palaeontology has never been so much fun or hands-on. Visitors can test their strength against a T-Rex jaw, recreate the sounds of various dinosaurs, uncover fossils and bones at a dig site and learn about how dinosaurs lived – from how fast they ran to how they digested their food.

The Explor-a-saurus Exhibition will run from the start of the Christmas school holidays on 13 December and continue until the end of the Easter Holidays on 19 April, 2015.

The dinosaurs exhibition will add an exciting new element to delving into history in Maryborough, where celebrating the past is served with a large dose of fun.

There are quirky tours and intriguing museums which bring to life Maryborough's fascinating, colourful and sometimes dark history as one of Australia's major immigration ports in the 1800s and one of Queensland's oldest cities.

Time cannons are fired on city streets by costumed ambassadors and replica old steam trains chug through its heritage-listed riverside park.

Maryborough is also filled with Mary Poppins magic, as the birthplace of author Pamela Travers. There is a Mary Poppins statue outside the heritage-listed bank residence where the author was born, a madcap Mary Poppins Festival, Mary Poppins public art and displays, and a delightful Magical Mary Discovery Trail.

Tickets to Explor-a-saurus are available from the Maryborough City Hall Visitor Information Centre or pre-book on line at www.ourfrasercoast.com.au/dinosaurs.

For information on Maryborough and the Fraser Coast holidays go towww.visitfrasercoast.com.au.