Take some of the latest artistic (and historic) exhibits at Maitland Regional Art Gallery (MRAG).

My particular interest was in the Small Museum exhibition by artist Simone Rosenbauer, which I came across after initially looking at some colourful, smiley 'biscuits'. I was intrigued. Running until June 30, it takes us inside the world of true collectors and the lesser-known local cultural treasures they protect.

The MRAG exhibition displays photographs taken at 41 community, often quirky, special interest museums across Australia.

According to MRAG director Gerry Bobsien, the snaps foster an understanding of these often overlooked institutions by shining the spotlight on them, helping preserve local heritage, history and identity.

Bobsien came across the project by chance, was immediately fascinated and decided it was a perfect fit for the gallery.

Subjects range from an Australasian golfing museum in tiny Bothwell, in central Tasmania, to a rocket testing museum in South Australia, to underground mining in Queensland, to a surf world museum, to Tamworth's Country Music Hall of Fame and way beyond, like a weird apple museum.

While the Small Museum project might get the visitor focus, there's a related exhibit called The Collectors from artists Billy Bain, Rosie Deacon and Kara Wood that also worth viewing.

Taking its cue from Simone Rosenbauer's Small Museum idea, MRAG commissioned the three artists to develop ideas involving local history collections.

Rosie Deacon responded with an artistic nod of putty Arrowroot biscuits (pictured) reflecting the famous Arnott family's original bakery at Morpeth on the banks of the Hunter River in 1847.

Artist Wood researched local objects held in collections, including Maitland Gaol, while Darug artist Bain devised a ceramic with Mortels sheepskin wool, paying homage to surf fashion and the iconic Ugg boot.

But in the meantime, let's explore some of subjects artist Rosenbauer discovered and recorded for posterity in frozen moments in time. The photo captions especially provide talking points for MRAG visitors.

One of the oddest places Rosenbauer found was the Land of the Beardies History Museum, in Glen Innes NSW. Dating back to the 1930s, it's a folk museum, but other information on it is tantalisingly brief.

More forthcoming in detail is the Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum (complete with impressive life-size replica dinosaurs and fossils) in outback Winton, in Queensland.

Not really interested, I hear you say? Well, read on ...

Dinosaur director and ex-cattleman Bruce Collins revealed to Rosenbauer that initially, excited museum field volunteers believed they had unearthed a 95-million-year-old wombat, of all things.

"The wombat specimen is called Wally and was found underneath the dinosaur fossil's ribs," Collins told Rosenbauer.

"But then you have to remember that wombats burrow. So, he burrowed a lovely little home underneath the dinosaur fossil ribs (as a safe place to live) then decided to die down there as well," Collins said.

And there's remarks made by Myrlene Wilkinson, of the Adelaide River Railway Museum in Adelaide, South Australia. It's a slice of real Australiana from days now long gone.

"There was an elderly man who came in, who had been on the old Ghan (railway). During the ride, the guard had come through and asked for 28 good-bodied men because the train's end carriage had come off the rails," she said.

"So, the men were all given crowbars to put the train back on the rails. Apparently, it was not an unusual event."

And who would imagine if you once worked in banks in South Australia long enough, you'd get to wear at least 27 special branded ties over the decades? The photographic proof is in an exhibit in the Banking and Currency Museum in Kadina, SA, along with pages and pages of uncirculated bank notes plastered on walls surrounded the museum's old bank vault.

Then there's some interesting pictures involving an Old Timers Mine exhibit, in Coober Pedy, also in SA, including a baby's bassinet and toys in a cave room.

Speaking of mining, today's large above-ground tin shed housing Queensland's Mount Isa Underground Museum was actually built in 1942 as an air-raid shelter when Darwin was bombed by the Japanese in World War II.

Other curiosities include the Woomera Heritage Museum, in SA, complete with rocket testing paraphernalia and the Ration Shed Museum, which once served Aborigines in Cherbourg, Queensland.

Then there's photos of the Newcastle Gaol. But it's not our old, long gone Sandhills Gaol, from convict days circa 1810, or the solid colonial building that still stands at 90 Hunter Street, next to our former grand post office in Bolton Street, city. Instead, this one is at Toodyay, in Western Australia. The focus of the collection here is on its own, later, convict era between 1860 and 1868.

Artist Rosenbauer reports it was an era when all the other states of Australia had already rejected convicts. WA, however, was "actually begging" to be sent some convicts so that "they could use them as free labour".

And who could forget the iconic Wing Hing Long & Co museum in Tingha, near Inverell, NSW? Well, almost everyone once it seems, but luckily it lives on after volunteers then pitched in to fix up the dilapidated building.

Built in 1880, the shop was in Chinese ownership through its entire trading life, until NSW Heritage bought this rarity to save it in 1998. Now it's a strange museum, an intact, rescued 19th century emporium, really; once a district grocery store it sold items in from pins to pillows and from canned food to female hats and purses. It's a sort of living museum, as if its elderly owner has just stepped out.

This real-life curiosity shop is the area's oldest surviving Chinese retail outlet and remains unaltered. It used to be stacked with about 18,000 goods. Down the back there's a mystery strongroom. Here, according to the site's custodian, people still don't know what's in it. When the Chinese shopkeeper left it in 1939-40, he locked the safe and left no key. He never told anyone what was in it and no one knows what it contains.

Then there are pictures of Dow's Pharmacy Museum in Chiltern, Victoria, from 1869. It also has been left exactly how Mrs Dow left it (complete with rare pill-making machines) after she walked out in 1968.

Of interest here is that a humble residence was attached out the back in 1912. The chemist who then lived there had a son who went on to become Australia's 18th Prime Minister, but it was for only 23 days in 1967-68. This politician/farmer was known as 'Black Jack' McEwen. He was the caretaker PM when incumbent Harold Holt mysteriously disappeared while out swimming.

Finally, let's end with something to get your teeth into. It's the strange Apple Heritage Museum in Tassie's Huon Valley. Here you'll learn about the world's rarest apple. Apparently, it's called the Rubigold, but no other details are provided. Other probably short-lived, experimental varieties include the Autumn Tart, the Babbit, the Bailly Varin, the Cold Stream Guard, Closette, Early Victoria, Cloud, Eddigone Grange, the Edward VIII and Edward's Coronation (from 1937 we presume, but it didn't happen, as he abdicated).

The exhibition also claims that early Tassie settlers from here exported about 300, 000 cases of apples annually from only five acres of orchard. Cor blimey! That's an awful lot of apples.