Lilydale Craft and Produce Market

Paying to walk into a market is unusual in Victoria, and the gold coin at the Lilydale gate is worth understanding before you grumble about it. The Rotary Club of Lilydale runs this market on the first Sunday of the month, 9am to 2pm, and the coins collected at the entry are the fundraising, not a cover charge. The stallholder fees keep the market running. The gold coins go straight out into local projects.

Craft, produce and a monthly variable

Between 25 and 40 stalls set up depending on the month, which is honest rather than disappointing: a market that runs on volunteers and outdoor space in the Yarra Valley is going to be bigger in October than in July. The mix is preserves, baked goods, seasonal fruit and vegetables, plants and seedlings, handmade gifts, woodwork and second-hand goods. It is a general community market rather than a specialist one, and it is priced and pitched for people doing their Sunday rather than for tourists passing through on the way to a winery.

The market has moved. For years it ran at Bellbird Park on Swansea Road, and it now sets up in the Yarra Ranges Council car park with entry off Hardy Street, which is closer to the centre of Lilydale and much easier to reach without a car. If you have an old set of directions or an out-of-date listing, that is the change to know about, because the two sites are a few kilometres apart.

Good to know before you go

First Sunday, 9am to 2pm, gold coin at the gate. Enter via Hardy Street rather than heading for the old Swansea Road site. Lilydale station is a short walk, which makes this one of the few Yarra Valley markets you can reach on the train from Melbourne without a connection. Bring cash for the gate and for the smaller stalls, though the produce sellers generally take cards. The car park is sealed and flat, so prams and wheelchairs are fine throughout. This is Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung country.