The last Whiti Citi Market until Kings Birthday weekend was held on Sunday, 26 April – shifted one day because Soldiers Memorial Park was the venue for the ANZAC Day ceremony on Saturday. The wreaths were still fresh around the monument.
ANZAC weekend carries its own gravity in New Zealand. It is a time for reflection and gratitude – for those who went before us, for what has been given, and for what was lost so that we might live the lives and enjoy the freedoms we so often take for granted.
The Whiti Citi Market sets up each Saturday morning at Soldiers Memorial Park, on the corner of Albert Street and Blacksmith Lane. There is something quietly comforting about a market where almost everything for sale is made by someone with a genuine passion for making it. Every item on those tables represents time and care. The market is about people, and the things they love to make.
The stalls themselves were, as always, worth the wander. Macramé necklaces threaded with crystals; woodwork turned on someone’s lathe – the kind of detail that makes you reconsider what your neighbours are quietly getting up to out there; woodwork, original art, children’s clothes, and jumpers knitted with the care that only a grandmother could muster. No fashion labels here. Every item an original. The craftsmanship – or ‘craftswomanship’, as is very often the case – is genuinely superb.
The crowds move leisurely through the market. There is time to chat, to hear the story behind the bowl or the necklace or the peculiar and wonderful metal object you are now seriously considering buying (I am sure you’ll find a use for it).
The stallholders have grown fond of one another over the Saturdays of spring and summer – an easy camaraderie born of shared thermos flasks and the quiet solidarity of people who erect gazebos in all weather. There were many cancelled Saturdays this past summer, and while the stallholders are a hardy lot, even the hardiest among them prefers sunshine. On Sunday, the weather gods were smiling. It was a stunning blue-sky autumn day.
Early in the afternoon, boxes were packed, gazebos folded down, and warm farewells exchanged. Now, in spare rooms and garden sheds and at kitchen tables across Whitianga and the wider Coromandel, the creativity quietly continues. New things are being stitched, forged, carved, and painted – all of it waiting for the next market on King’s Birthday weekend.
Mark it in your diary. Bring a bag larger than you think you’ll need; or just buy one when you get there.
Tairua Market
Running King’s Birthday weekend at Tairua Bowling Club 9:00am-1:00pm.
Thames Market
Every Saturday in Pollen Street, Grahamstown. Going right through winter. Open from 8:00am.
Pauanui Market
Next market on Matariki weekend.
