Mirboo North Market

The Mirboo North Market fills Baromi Park on the last Saturday of every month except December, and its site is about as central as a market can get: the park sits directly on Ridgway, the town's main street, in the middle of the Strzelecki Ranges. Trading runs 8.30am to 1pm and stallholders start setting up from 7am.

Sixty to eighty stalls, and a grain store to duck into

The stall count sits between 60 and 80 depending on the month, which is substantial for a town this size, and the layout gives it two distinct halves. Most of it is outdoors under the park's trees, alongside the playground and the skatepark, which is why the market functions as a Saturday morning for families rather than a shopping errand. The rest is indoors in the old grain store, a useful thing to have on a Gippsland winter morning. What is on offer runs from fresh regional produce and artisan baking through handmade craft, plants and jewellery to new and used goods, with food trucks and two resident coffee vendors keeping people fed.

The market is run by Mirboo Country Development Incorporated, a membership-based community association, and all profits go back into projects in the town. That arrangement is common enough in country Victoria, but the way this one recycles money to shoppers rather than only to stallholders is not.

Good to know before you go

Last Saturday, 8.30am to 1pm, and note the December gap: there is no market that month, so the November date is the last of the year. Bring cash, because stall coverage varies and the nearest ATM is at the Bendigo Bank branch in town with cash out also available at the BP service station. Baromi Park is on Ridgway in the town centre with parking on the surrounding streets, and the playground and skatepark are right there if you have children with you. Mirboo North is around two hours from Melbourne through the Strzelecki Ranges. This is Gunaikurnai and Bunurong country.