Bittern Rotary Community Market

The Bittern Rotary Community Market has been running for more than thirty years, every Sunday, in the grounds of Bittern railway station on the Frankston-Flinders Road. It has capacity for over forty stalls, and the number that actually turns up varies week to week, which is the honest way a weekly community market works.

A stall list with no theme at all

Trying to summarise what is sold here is a losing exercise, and that is the appeal. Fresh coffee, plants, pre-loved goods, flowers, fruit and vegetables, videos, clothing, cosmetics, vinyl records, water features, gemstones, jewellery, books, tools, antiques, candles, diffusers, craft and packaged food all appear. It is a genuine community market rather than a curated one, so the same Sunday might turn up a box of records worth digging through and a grower with a trestle of tomatoes. Rotary's model puts the proceeds back into the community through the traders it supports and the projects the club funds.

Running weekly for three decades is the real achievement here. Plenty of Rotary markets are monthly, and plenty of weekly markets have quietly become fortnightly or seasonal. This one has held its Sunday slot through good years and bad, which is why regulars treat it as a fixture rather than an event.

Good to know before you go

Trading is 8am to 1pm every Sunday, and the market runs rain, hail or shine. Entry and parking are both free, with parking around the station grounds off Frankston-Flinders Road. Bring cash: at a market with this many independent second-hand and craft traders, cash is still the default and card facilities are patchy. Bring bags too. The stall count varies week to week, so if you are hunting something specific it is worth going more than once rather than writing the market off on a quiet Sunday. Hastings, Balnarring and the Western Port foreshore are all close by if you want to make a morning of it. Bittern is on Bunurong country.