Magnetic Island Sunday Markets

The Magnetic Island Markets keep a tropical calendar rather than a year-round one. They set up on the Horseshoe Bay foreshore every Sunday from 9am to 2pm between April and January, then stop for the wet season, which the island's own visitor guide puts at late January to late March. Nobody is standing on the sand in a monsoon trough, so the market simply takes the quarter off and comes back when the weather does.

An island market run by the island

The organiser is the Magnetic Island Community Development Association, the same volunteer body behind other island projects, and it runs the market as a community operation rather than a commercial one. Everyone who takes part is a member: stallholders, musicians and buskers all have to hold current MICDA membership, and stall fees run from $16.50 to $38.00 per market depending on whether the site is a permanent one and whether the trader carries their own insurance. Stalls are booked through the market coordinator, Denise Dexter, on 0457 023 095. What sells is what an island collects, with jewellery, clothing, art and food across the stalls, live music on the foreshore, and cafes, restaurants and the pub a short walk away for lunch afterwards.

One Sunday a year the market is not where you expect it.

Before you catch the ferry

Check the month first. Between late January and late March there is no market at all, and the season restarts in April, so a summer visitor can easily arrive on an island with a weekly Sunday market and still find nothing on the foreshore. Horseshoe Bay is at the northern end of Magnetic Island, a bus or a short drive from the ferry terminal at Nelly Bay, and the market sits on the foreshore between the beach and the shops, which makes it an easy half-day: market first, swim second, lunch at one of the bay's cafes or the pub. Bring cash for the smaller stalls, and if you want to trade rather than shop, the membership requirement means a phone call to the coordinator well before you turn up with a table.