Blackheath Growers Market

Blackheath was where the growers-market idea landed first in the Blue Mountains. The market started in August 2003 and has run the second Sunday of the month ever since, which makes it more than two decades old and the pioneer of a format the upper mountains now takes for granted. It fills the Blackheath Community Centre on the corner of the Great Western Highway and Gardiner Street from 8am until noon.

Sixty growers, one morning a month

Blue Mountains City Council puts the count at over 60 growers, and the word growers is doing real work here rather than standing in for stallholders. The range runs to fruit and vegetables, meat, bread, cheeses made from cow, goat and sheep milk, olive oils and local wines, nuts and honey, free-range eggs, spices and condiments, plants and seedlings, and a long list of baked goods. Because the market runs at the community centre rather than out on an oval, upper mountains weather is less of a gamble than it would otherwise be, and the January break is the only gap in the year. That leaves eleven markets, every one of them on the second Sunday.

The founding date is worth more than a line in a listing, because of what came after it.

Good to know before you go

Get there closer to 8am than to noon. Four hours is a short window for 60 growers, and the produce stalls that draw people up the highway are the ones that sell out. January is the one month with no market, so a summer trip needs checking against the calendar rather than assumed. Blackheath sits at the top of the mountains between Katoomba and Mount Victoria, and the community centre is on the highway itself with parking around it, so this is an easy stop on the way to Govetts Leap or the Grose Valley walks. Bring a bag and bring cash. This is Darug and Gundungurra country.