Tweed Heads Market

The Tweed Heads Market is licensed by Tweed Shire Council to the Tweed Heads Community Men's Shed, and the shed is not a distant landlord: it stands on the western edge of Recreation Street Park, beside the ground the stalls set up on every Sunday morning. Some of what sells at the market is made in that building, which is an unusually short supply chain for a market of this size.

A car boot market with a produce backbone

The mix is broader than most weekly markets manage. Fresh local produce from Tweed Valley growers sits alongside handmade crafts, art, clothing and food, and the market is genuinely known for its car boot stalls, the bring-what-you-have end of the trade that turns up bric-a-brac and second-hand goods worth digging through. Thousands of people come through on a normal Sunday. Larger outdoor markets on the first and third Sunday of the month push past 100 stallholders, so those are the dates to pick if you want the full spread.

The park does more than hold the stalls. There is a playground and a basketball area beside the market, which changes the calculation if you are bringing children, and the Men's Shed sells its own handcrafted wooden products from a table there. Parking is easy by the standards of the border strip, and the site is central enough that the market is a short detour rather than an expedition.

Good to know before you go

Sunday only, 7am to 1pm, and it trades rain or shine, which is worth knowing in a subtropical summer. Come early for produce and for the car boot stalls, since the good second-hand goes in the first hour. Food vendors on site need a council food premises registration, so the eating end is regulated rather than casual, and the Filipino food has enough of a local reputation to be worth a look. Note the two conflicting sets of hours floating around online: the market's stallholder page runs on a different clock to the public one, because setup starts at 5am. For shoppers, 7am is when it is worth arriving.