A Day at the Markets

The 2nd day of spring and the weather was just fabulous, I've been working just a little too hard and it was starting to take it's toll. So instead of working from home, painting, unpacking or cleaning I decided to take a Saturday off just to do something that I enjoy.

I've been meaning check out a few of the markets around Sydney and today seemed like the perfect day for it. I rounded up the troops (Sophia and Jacky) and off we went.

Grower's Market - Pyrmont

We're regulars to this market, we just love it!

Because you need to get up early for these markets you really end up making the most of your day. There are always the old favourites but each time you're here you're bound to discover something new to try. The increase in popularity of these markets were extremely noticeable, the whole place was crowded with people. Normally getting there at 9:30am would be quite a good time but today some of the more popular items had already sold out.

I realise that this photo looks exactly like the one I took last time, but I assure you its different. I just can't get over how perfect the weather was...what a beautiful day!

The flowers looked stunning and you really could smell spring in the air. This dog was so cute! he was just a puppy but he was hugeeee! I was trying to take a picture of this dog when Helen popped by to say hi (Hello! I hope that you had a good day too!).

I wish my cupcakes turned out like that! I also taste tested some passionfruit curd, orange marmalade and lemon curd. The lemon one was divine! It would be perfect on toast with a bit of butter. Although $9 a jar was a little more than what I wanted to spend I couldn't resist taking one home.

Every time I come here I find myself spending stupid amounts of money, so after some wise words from Helen & Deborah I decided to set myself a $20 budget.

(They also had these honey crisps which were really yum but at $9.50 a bag I had to give it a miss).

Sophia and I love this trout stand, the dip that he makes is absolutely delicious! I'm can't remember how much he usually sells it for, but today he gave it to us for $5.

The stand next to him was selling some 'Rosey Red' blood oranges, blood oranges are available from June till September each year. These oranges are extremely sweet and vibrant in colour; they also have a lower acidity level than your supermarket variety which is good for people with sensitive tummies. After taste testing a few pieces I decided that I had to have a bag ($5).

Having used my $20 for the day Sophia offered to buy a loaf of the 'tomato bush' flavoured sough dough bread ($5.50) to eat with our dip. We asked the bread man to cut the loaf up into sections for us and we had our own little picnic on one of the tables.

At around 10:30 -11:00am we decided that it was time to move on. My goal for the day was to find 2 paintings, one for the lounge room and one for the kitchen so I figured the markets at The Rocks would be the way to go.

The Rocks Market - Circular Quay

It's been so long since I've been to the markets here that I had no idea what to expect.

They had a little food section that sold hot corn, strawberry sticks and home made lemonade.


As I ventured deeper into the stalls I discovered jams, chilli sauce, fudge and much much more.

Sophia made me taste this Chilli sauce that was so hot I couldn't feel my tongue for ages after. When the sign warns you by saying 'caution extremely hot 18+ only' it makes sense to not plonk a whole spoonful on your cracker (when will I ever learn??).

The rest of the Market had some lovely jewellery, toys, art pieces and photos but it didn't have the paintings I was looking for.

Not content we decided to head to the markets at Manly

Manly Art & Crafts Market

Manly is such an awesome place, the area is so beautiful, catching the ferry to work sure beats the train! But property at Manly is wayyy out of our budget, my friends who recently bought a 2 bedroom apartment there paid $800,000....oof!

The Manly markets are dedicated to arts & crafts and was a lot smaller than I expected. There were only 15 stalls at most, and look only a short time for us to look through them. There were a few food stalls and the nougat from this stand looked really yummy.

They did have a few stalls with nice paintings (the prices ranged from $150 to $350+ per print), one painting did catch my eye and could work really well in the kitchen but for us to spend that much money we needed to be sure that we really wanted it. Jacky wasn't convinced so we decided to keep looking.

What do you guys think? On the left is the painting that we are considering, it needs to be the red/orange/yellow colours as my kitchen appliances have a bit of a red theme going on and these colours would compliment it. On the right is my dining table and directly behind it is where the painting would go. I guess it's hard to tell from a photo but the dining room joins with the kitchen making the space a lot bigger than what is pictured...thoughts?

Parking is rather expensive at Manly, 1 hr on the street sets you back $6. With time to spare we decided to grab some fish & chips to eat by the beach....YumO!

I was having the best time until something hit me hard in the leg, I seriously thought some one threw a pine cone at me. When I investigated what had hit me I saw that a bird had in fact pooed on me!! It was sooo gross!! but then again it's suppose to be good luck =P

After Manly we were all pretty exhausted and decided to give the Glebe markets a miss (plus I was still traumatised by the bird pooing incident). After dropping Sophia off we went home, it felt like we had done so much but it was still only 3pm, got to love early morning starts!

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Market Goodness