MARKET OPENS WITH ROAD CLOSURE
The word Eumundi is shrouded in the loss of the Kabi tribe of Aborigines dispossessed of their land by timber getting white settlers. The most plausible derivation is considered to be a Kabi tribesman’s name Houmundi. The Eumundi Market was founded in 1979 by Christa Barton and Gail Perry-Somers to re-energise the community, especially unemployed youth, after the Bruce Highway to Brisbane was diverted around it.
I first visited Eumundi Markets in 1980 with my Noosa sea and tree changer friends environmentalists Dr Michael Gloster OAM and Glen Gloster. In 1989 Marta Sengers and I together with our son Benjamin landed in Noosa as refugees from Keating’s “recession we had to have”. Our Eumundi Market book was a logical path to reinventing ourselves and fitting into the community.
Eumundi Markets have grown exponentially with the surge in the permanent and tourist populations flocking to South-East Queensland. However it is instructive to revisit its origins in the community, including the CWA Hall centrepiece and the Museum - a cane cutter’s cottage relocated from Yandina, home to the Eumundi Historical Society which provided the organisational platform for Christa Barton and Gail Perry-Somers plans.
One of my favourite people in my Eumundi Market book and in the gallery on this website is best selling author Jenny Wagner who supported the fledgling social enterprise in its early days as a volunteer picking up litter after the market closed. A former convener of the markets and a food stall holder in the CWA Hall for a time, Jenny especially enjoyed selling and signing her books such as ‘The Bunyip of Berkeley’s Creek’ at the markets.