Market Friday starring the historic and muticultural Footscray Mark...

Hello there everyone out there in #MarketFriday Magic.

I hope that you're all well and finding those fantastic bargains and special things at your favourite markets, or even discovering new ones!

So today I took an impromptu train ride out to Footscray to talk to a friend about a job and when I got there and got off the train, down onto the street, the first thing that I saw was the Footscray market.

And since it is the lovely Hive account@dswigle that has created this great community for us to share our finds in, I though I'd like to share it here with all of you.

If you too would like to share you magical, marvellous and mind-bending market stories with us, then just click on this link to find out how. created/hive-196308 and see you next Friday!

Although I have been there before, the last time was when I first moved to Melbourne in 2005 and I haven't been there in the 15yrs since- even though I used to love it at the time, so it was reconnecting and re-discovering this gem in the centre of historic Footscray.

As we have the Omnicron variant of Covid ripping through Australia at the moment, the city so very quiet- which was the prefect time for me to go, but unfortunately not for all of the vendors and other shop keepers.

Our mainstream news has been constantly talking about the empty supermarket shelves due to supply issues.

But we can see here, there are no supply problems, there is plenty of fruit, veg, dead animal carcasses and marine life here, so what's the problem?

They're also saying that it is an issue with the lack of truckdrivers to deliver the products to the shops, but again, I don't see empty shelves here, only full ones, packed to the brim with fresh everything and if there were a lack of drivers, then why is all of this fresh produce here and all so fresh too.

So maybe all of the whingy people that say that can't find any fresh fruit and veg on the supermarket shelves should take that 10 min train trip to Footscray markets (where it is all so much cheaper AND fresher than the supermarkets) and help out the vendors here!

Anyway, so what is it about Footscray that makes it so special? Apart from the fact that it is so wonderfully multi-cultural, colourful and smells Soooooo good?

Well according to this website,https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Footscray,_Victoria
In 2013, there were over 130 restaurants in Footscray, including; 30 Vietnamese, 20 Indian, 17 Chinese and several; African, Australian, Indonesian, Italian, Thai, Turkish and Japanese. Footscray also has one each of the following restaurants; Croatian, Korean, Malaysian and Portuguese.

However, according to this website https://tomelbourne.com.au/history-footscray/ The area around Footscray and the surrounding suburbs were closely related to the salt water river that flows through it. The Saltwater river which later became known as the Maribyrnong River is one of Melbourne‘s largest rivers stretching 130 km from the rest of Macendon Ranges to Port Phillip Bay.

And for thousands of years, The area around Footscray was home to the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung and the Bunurong people of the Kulin Nation before the arrival of Europeans. The Aboriginal way of life kept the river pristine until the European arrival.

Explorers from New South Wales and Van Dieman's Land were the first Europeans to visit the Saltwater River area in recorded history on 2 February 1803 after reaching the mouth of the Yarra River. Charles Grimes, deputy surveyor-General of New South Wales explored salt water river for several miles. In 1824 Explorers him and Howell cross the salt water river at the Keilor Plains.

32 years after Grimes is exploration, in 1835, John Batman‘s Rebecca anchored in Hobsons Bay near the mouth of the Yarra River.

During the ensuing years, Footscray relied mostly on Quarrying until the 1860's and later.

Footscray was also asserting its position as an industrial hub, becoming one of the highly industrialised municipalities in Melbourne.

Most of the industries that moved to the area were linked to animal slaughter.

Bone mills, tanneries, a bacon curing works and this industrial growth in Footscray continued until the 1890s

Footscray was officially proclaimed a town in the government Gazette of 1887.

As all of Melbourne's noxious trades like boiling down works, tanneries, wool washes, and slaughterhouses found a place at Footscray, Flemington and in Kensington, it gave a reputation as a place that stinks.

But that all changed when from the 1900's on, Footscray started changing, undertaking public works and beautification, reserving parks, building cinemas, but still the noxious remained, despite outcries from the public.

By the 1960 and 1970's, many of these industries closed due to economic viability and changing technology, resulting in the riverfront land being opened up for parklands and residential estates.

In the 2016 census showed that 43.8% of people in Footscray were born in Australia and the most common countries of birth were 9.6% from Vietnam, 6.7% from India, 3.9% from China, 2.1% from New Zealand and 1.9 from England.

Today Footscray is considered to as a suburb that is content with industrial past and proud of its multicultural present the precinct around Nicolson Street more features Waze and fashions from across the African continent everything from wigs home-made Eritrean style dresses and Somali Sambusa pastries.

And that is why I LOVE Footscray- for the colour, the food and the amazing people that have bought it all for us to enjoy and now that I have re-discovered it again after so many years, I can't wait to go back there again!

And if you want to go back there again to learn so much more about it than I can paraphrased here, if only in the virtual world- for the moment....then I highly recommend going to these website to enjoy a more comprehensive, historical tour. https://tomelbourne.com.au/history-footscray/ and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Footscray,_Victoria

Thank you so much for reading my post , I really hope that you enjoyed it and look forward to your comments and thoughts.

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