Kempsey Riverside Markets

Riverside Park spends most of the month as a stretch of grass and playground on the bank of the Macleay River. On the first Saturday it becomes a market of more than 100 stallholders, relaunched in July 2020 by the Macleay Valley Business Chamber as one of its own initiatives and run by the committee since.

Shade, grass and 100 stalls

The setting explains why the market works. Stalls sit on grassland under the trees rather than in a car park, the river runs past one side of it, and the adjoining park has children's play equipment, which turns a shopping trip into a morning with somewhere for the kids to go. The stall mix is local and regional produce and products, with makers, food vendors and live musicians, and the market has run demonstrations alongside the trading. Visitors are asked to bring their own reusable bags, which is a small thing but a consistent one.

Kempsey sits in the Macleay Valley about halfway between Sydney and Brisbane, and it was built on timber and dairy. Two things have made it nationally known since: Slim Dusty, the bush balladeer born in the Macleay Valley in 1927 who became the first Australian to record an international hit with A Pub With No Beer, and Akubra, which moved its hat-making operation from Sydney to Kempsey in October 1974. The Slim Dusty Centre opened in 2015 and covers his fifty-year career alongside the region's country music history.

Good to know before you go

Eight in the morning to one in the afternoon is a full five-hour market, which is generous for a monthly, but the produce sellers still go quiet well before the end. Bring reusable bags, since the organisers ask for it, and bring a chair or a picnic rug if you want to sit on the grass and listen to the music rather than walk laps. Parking around Eden Street is straightforward on a Saturday morning. If you are travelling the Pacific Highway, the market is a good reason to pull off for a couple of hours rather than push through, and the Slim Dusty Centre and the museum are both close enough to add on.