Murwillumbah Showground Market

The Tweed Valley grows tropical fruit that most of the country only sees in a supermarket, and the fourth Sunday market at the Murwillumbah Showground is where a good deal of it is sold by the people who picked it. Around a hundred stalls, five hours, and a stall list that runs from custard apples to car parts.

Produce first, car boot second

The market splits neatly. Fresh tropical fruit and vegetables and the food trucks are the draw, and the rest is a proper car boot market: toys, clothes, sporting gear, jewellery, household goods, car accessories, workshop tools and groceries. That combination is unusual and it works, because the produce brings people in early and the second-hand stalls keep them walking.

The showground is a historic site with room to spread, which is what lets the market carry both halves without the produce end feeling squeezed by the trestle tables.

Good to know before you go

Bring cash, bags and a hat: this is subtropical Australia and by eleven the sun is doing real work. An 8am start is the sensible half of the morning and the produce moves fast. Parking is on the showground. Murwillumbah sits under Mount Warning about half an hour inland from the coast, so this pairs naturally with a Tweed hinterland drive. December is the month off, which catches out holiday visitors more than anything else about the schedule.