Old Bus Depot Markets: Canberra Travel Guide (4.2★)

One day a week on Wentworth Avenue

For six days the old depot on Wentworth Avenue sits shut. On Sunday the doors open and the place fills with trestle tables, clothing racks and food stalls. You walk in from the street, and the scale of the old industrial building hits you before the stalls do: long roof, wide floor, built for parking buses.

This is one of Canberra’s best-known weekend fixtures. It isn’t a secret, and nobody here will pretend it is. Plenty of Canberrans make it a regular Sunday habit. Visitors who time a weekend in the capital right can join them.

Inside the former depot

The building is the reason the market feels like this. A bus depot is a big open shed meant for vehicles, and that layout now gives you broad aisles under one roof. Rain or shine, you shop indoors. Canberra winter mornings are cold, so that matters more than it sounds.

What you’ll find falls into four broad groups:

• Food: ready-to-eat stalls and produce you can take home
• Apparel: clothing and accessories, much of it from small sellers
• Gifts: the homewares and trinkets people come to browse
• Art: prints, crafts and handmade work

The stallholders change from week to week, so expect a slightly different mix each Sunday. It’s a browsing market, not an errand. You come to wander, eat something and see who’s selling.

The Sunday-only clock

Timing is the single most important thing to get right here. At the moment the market opens only on Sundays, from 9:30am to 2:30pm. Google lists Monday to Saturday as closed. Turn up on a Saturday and you’ll find locked doors.

That five-hour window shapes the whole visit. Come early and stallholders are still setting out stock, with the best handmade pieces still on the tables. Late morning is lunch time, so food stalls will have queues. Popular items can sell out by early afternoon, and some sellers start packing up as 2:30pm gets close.

Hours can change around public holidays and special events. Check the market’s official site or social channels the week you plan to go. Allow one to two hours inside, more if you’re eating there or shopping for gifts.

Getting to Kingston

The market is at 21 Wentworth Ave, Kingston, a few kilometres southeast of the city centre (Civic). Kingston is one of Canberra’s older inner-south suburbs, near the eastern end of Lake Burley Griffin.

• By car: most visitors drive. Parking nearby fills up on Sunday mornings, so arriving close to opening makes it easier to find a spot.
• By bus: Canberra’s public buses (Transport Canberra) run to the inner south. Check the Transport Canberra journey planner for Sunday timetables, which run less often than weekday services.
• On foot or by bike: if you’re staying near the lake, the paths around East Basin and the Kingston Foreshore get you here without a car.
• Rideshare and taxis: a short trip from Civic or the Parliamentary Triangle.

Canberra’s light rail runs north from Civic and doesn’t reach Kingston, so don’t plan around it.

Working the aisles

Shopping here goes more smoothly once you know a few habits.

• Paying: most stalls take card and tap-to-pay, which is standard in Australia. Carry a little cash anyway for the odd small seller or a card reader that drops out.
• Tipping: not expected at food stalls. Australians don’t tip at counters, and nobody will think less of you.
• Haggling: this isn’t a bargaining market. Prices are set by small makers. Paying what’s marked is the norm, though asking about a deal on several items is fine.
• Ordering food: queue at the stall, order and pay at the counter, then wait nearby for your name or number.
• Bags: bring your own tote. Australian shoppers carry reusable bags as a matter of course, and it makes carrying art prints or produce easier.
• Talking to makers: many sellers made what’s on their table. Asking how something was made is welcome, and it’s often how you find out where they sell during the week.

Do a full lap before you buy. With this many stalls, the thing you love may be three aisles further on, and walking back against the crowd to the first stall gets slow once the floor fills up.

Before and after: the lake end of Kingston

The market is a good anchor for a morning in the inner south. Canberra Glassworks is a few steps along Wentworth Avenue in the old Kingston Powerhouse, a heritage brick building where you can watch glassblowers at work. Check its hours separately, as they differ from the market’s.

Past the Glassworks, the Kingston Foreshore runs along the water at East Basin. It’s an easy flat walk with cafés and restaurants facing the lake. If you’d rather stay on dry land, the shops and cafés around Green Square in Kingston and nearby Manuka are both close by for a late lunch after the stalls pack up.

Heading back to the Parliamentary Triangle afterwards, Old Parliament House and the National Gallery are a short drive away. That makes a Sunday that starts at the depot and ends at the national institutions very easy to put together.