The Field Garden and Maritime Museum at the Bartolomeu Dias Museum Complex

The Bartolomeu Dias Museum Complex is built around the Post Office Tree and was opened on the 3rd of February 1988. It replaced the municipal Mossel Bay museum (later the Post Office Tree Museum Complex), which was opened in the 1960s.

The Dias Museum Complex includes:

• The Post Office Tree
• A Maritime Museum
• A Shell Museum
• The Granary
• Dias’ Spring
• An Ethno-botanic Garden, Braille Trail, and Field Gardens
• The Munro’s Hoek Cottages

Two Cape Dutch style cottages in the Complex’s gardens are used by the Mossel Bay Archaeology Project, and are not open to the public. They are replicas – built on the original foundations – of houses which Alexander Munro erected in about 1830. Munro ran a seamen’s canteen here, and his family later operated a seal hunting and whaling station from the adjacent Santos Beach.

• Malay Graves

These graves – which face Mecca and are situated close to the Post Office Tree – were re-discovered in 1968. The land on which they stand was granted as a Muslim burial ground in the mid 1800s, and it is thought that at least one of the graves may belong to an imam who was buried here after dying at sea.

The Museum is open daily except Christmas Day and Good Friday.

• Monday to Friday 09h00 – 16h45
• Weekends and Public Holidays 09h00 – 15h45

Latitude   34° 10’49.42″S
Longitude  22° 8’32.39″E

Download a pdf booklet on the Museums of Mossel Bay here:

• Bartolomeu Dias Museum Complex
• Private Bag X1, Mossel Bay, 6500
• 1 Market Street, CBD, Mossel Bay
• Phone: +27 (0)44 691 1067
• Fax: +27 (0)44 691 1915
• Email: info@diasmuseum.co.za
• Homepage: http://www.diasmuseum.co.za