Upwey Community Market

The Upwey Community Market opened with 28 vendors. It now runs a selected list of roughly 45, and the word the organisers use is selected: stallholders are chosen rather than simply booked, which is how a monthly market in a village of a few thousand people avoids turning into rows of the same imported stock.

Behind the shops, not on the street

The market sits on the village green behind the Main Street shopfronts, which is an unusual arrangement and easy to miss on a first visit. There is no strip of stalls to spot from the car. You park on Main Street, walk between the shops, and the market opens up behind them on grass. The setting does most of the work: the green is enclosed, level enough to push a pram across, and close enough to the shops that the village cafes stay part of the morning rather than competing with it.

The stall mix reflects the hills rather than a generic market template. Fresh produce and baked goods sit alongside plants, hand-crafted work, trinkets, treats for dogs, and enough prepared food that lunch is a reasonable plan rather than an afterthought. Live music comes from local performers, which in the Dandenongs means the acts change month to month and are usually people who live within a few kilometres of the green.

Worth knowing before the fourth Sunday

Trading is 9am to 2pm, a long enough window that there is no need to rush, though the produce and baked goods move earliest. There is no market in January, so the year runs February to December. Parking is on Main Street and the surrounding side streets, and the Upwey railway station is a short walk if you would rather take the Belgrave line than drive the hill. Bring cash as well as a card, since sellers are independent and set up their own payment. The green is grass, so flat shoes after rain. Dogs are part of the scene here, which the dedicated dog-treat stalls make fairly obvious. Upwey sits on Wurundjeri country.